Special Patreon Release: Wisdom from a Homeschooling Dad with Steve Lambert
Luke 6:40 (NI) "The student is not above the teacher, but everyone who is fully trained will be like their teacher."
*Transcription Below*
Questions and Topics We Discuss:
What are some wonderful aspects of your lifestyle that are not available to families who are not home educating their children?
What are some common questions you get about homeschool and what truth do you have to replace the myths?
How long will prep take for the homeschooling parent and what does a typical schedule look like?
Steve Lambert has worn many hats in his 73 years: Pastor, author, speaker, stock broker and more. Together, he and his wife Jane Claire Lambert created and publish "Five in a Row" homeschool curriculum which has been a reader’s choice favorite for nearly 30 years. They began homeschooling their children in 1981 and their seven grandchildren were homeschooled as well.
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Gospel Scripture: (all NIV)
Romans 3:23 “for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God,”
Romans 3:24 “and are justified freely by his grace through the redemption that came by Christ Jesus.”
Romans 3:25 (a) “God presented him as a sacrifice of atonement, through faith in his blood.”
Hebrews 9:22 (b) “without the shedding of blood there is no forgiveness.”
Romans 5:8 “But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.”
Romans 5:11 “Not only is this so, but we also rejoice in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have now received reconciliation.”
John 3:16 “For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.”
Romans 10:9 “That if you confess with your mouth, “Jesus is Lord,” and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved.”
Luke 15:10 says “In the same way, I tell you, there is rejoicing in the presence of the angels of God over one sinner who repents.”
Romans 8:1 “Therefore, there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus”
Ephesians 1:13–14 “And you also were included in Christ when you heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation. Having believed, you were marked in him with a seal, the promised Holy Spirit, who is a deposit guaranteeing our inheritance until the redemption of those who are God’s possession- to the praise of his glory.”
Ephesians 1:15–23 “For this reason, ever since I heard about your faith in the Lord Jesus and your love for all the saints, I have not stopped giving thanks for you, remembering you in my prayers. I keep asking that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the glorious Father, may give you the spirit of wisdom and revelation, so that you may know him better. I pray also that the eyes of your heart may be enlightened in order that you may know the hope to which he has called you, the riches of his glorious inheritance in the saints, and his incomparably great power for us who believe. That power is like the working of his mighty strength, which he exerted in Christ when he raised him from the dead and seated him at his right hand in the heavenly realms, far above all rule and authority, power and dominion, and every title that can be given, not only in the present age but also in the one to come. And God placed all things under his feet and appointed him to be head over everything for the church, which is his body, the fullness of him who fills everything in every way.”
Ephesians 2:8–10 “For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith – and this not from yourselves, it is the gift of God – not by works, so that no one can boast. For we are God‘s workmanship, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do.“
Ephesians 2:13 “But now in Christ Jesus you who once were far away have been brought near through the blood of Christ.“
Philippians 1:6 “being confident of this, that he who began a good work in you will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus.”
*Transcription*
Music: (0:00 – 0:08)
Laura Dugger: (0:09 - 1:37) Welcome to The Savvy Sauce, where we have practical chats for intentional living. I'm your host, Laura Dugger, and I'm so glad you're here.
I want to say a huge thank you to today's sponsors for this episode, Chick-fil-A East Peoria, and Savvy Sauce Charities.
Are you interested in a free college education for you or someone you know?
Stay tuned for details coming later in this episode from today's sponsor, Chick-fil-A, East Peoria.
You can also visit their website today at Chick-fil-A.com/EastPeoria.
I'm excited to introduce you to my fascinating guest, Steve Lambert.
Steve has a unique perspective, as he has worn various hats, such as pastor, author, speaker, stockbroker, and more.
But today, we're going to hear various stories of how God has been faithful in calling he and his wife, Jane, to homeschool, and also publish homeschool curriculum called Five in a Row.
Regardless of our family schooling choice, these stories will build up our faith and remind us who we get to turn to in all things.
Here's our chat. Welcome to The Savvy Sauce, Steve.
Steve Lambert: (1:37 - 1:39) Good morning. It's great to be with you, Laura.
Laura Dugger: (1:40 - 1:53) Well, you are a part of a multi-generational homeschooling family.
So, will you begin our time by taking us back to that initial decision that you and your wife made to home educate your children?
Steve Lambert: (1:54 - 3:31) Sure, I'd love to. We made that decision back in 1981. I'm sure probably you and many of your listeners were not even born in 1981. But my wife came to me and she said, "So, hypothetically, what would you think if…” and my response was something like, "That cannot possibly be legal."
Because at that point, we knew no one who homeschooled. We never met a homeschooler.
I don't, you know, it was just completely foreign to my understanding. But I began to pray about it.
And as I did, I felt like the Lord said, "You're accountable for how you raise your children."
And I thought, well, if I'm accountable, then I ought to have some idea of how they're being raised.
Because, frankly, in a classroom, 95% of their lives are spent there in the classroom.
And they get home on the activity bus at 5:15 and eat dinner and go up and do their homework.
And that's the end of the day. And so, I thought, alright, maybe that's a good plan.
Now, parenthetically, let me add that it wasn't until a couple of years later, I felt like the Lord spoke to me and said, "And your children are accountable for how they turn out," which was profoundly important to me at the time.
Because we've all known great families who produce train wrecks for kids.
And we've known some train wreck parents who produce great kids. But we're accountable for how we raise our kids.
And I thought, if I'm going to have to sit for the final exam before the Lord of Heaven, I'd like to at least have some input in some part and at least know how they were raised. So, that was beginning in 1981.
Laura Dugger: (3:32 - 3:43) That is incredible, because you had no idea.
I'm even getting goosebumps just thinking now of where your family is at from that decision.
And could you catch us up to speed? How many children do you have?
Steve Lambert: (3:44 - 4:25) We had two daughters. We kind of left that in the Lord's hand. And that's what we ended up with. And my wife would have loved to have more, but we ended up with two daughters.
And between them, they have six daughters and one grandson. So, we have seven grandkids.
Several of them are through homeschooling now, college or career. The youngest at this point is six.
So, they're third-generation homeschoolers, which I think speaks to the validity of the homeschooling option for many people.
You know it's worked successfully when your children want to homeschool their children rather than running as far away from homeschooling as they could possibly get.
Laura Dugger: (4:27 - 4:38) Well, and even going back then to 1981, you were questioning at that point, is this even legal?
So, catch us up. At that time, were there any legalities that you were up against?
Steve Lambert: (4:40 - 8:42) Then, like now, it really does depend on the state where you reside.
And Missouri has always been fairly homeschool-friendly. That said, within about a year after we began, our oldest daughter had been in public school in K-1 and had been in a private Christian school for one semester of second grade before we began the decision to homeschool.
And someone, presumably a family member I suspect, turned us into Family Services for Educational Neglect Child Abuse.
So, we had that dreaded knock at the door, and DFS came and had to inspect the children, make sure that they weren't bruised or harmed in any way, and then begin kind of the prosecutorial process against us.
But eventually they realized they really didn't have much say, so they turned the case over to the superintendent of schools.
And we happened to live in the same district where Jane and I had become high school sweethearts.
So, we hired an attorney, and we went and had a meeting with the superintendent of schools.
I often tell the story and describe him as being an older gentleman.
Now, in reality, compared to me today at age 73, he was probably only 60. He was a young fellow of about 60. But when you're 30, that seems pretty old.
And he had a couple of PhDs in education and administration, and he said, "You know, I strongly disagree with the choice you've made," but unfortunately, we had had our daughter tested using standardized testing just prior to that, and he compared her test scores after a year of homeschooling with her test scores when she had been in his public school classrooms, and she had improved significantly in every subject area.
So, he said, "I'm not going to cause you any problems, but I still think you're making a serious mistake." And the footnote to that story was lived out less than a year later when my phone rang, and it was the superintendent of schools.
And he said, "Mr. Lambert, can I speak with you frankly?" And I thought, oh boy, here we go. He said, "I don't know if you're aware of this, but we're having some problems in public education."
And I said, "No, not, I can't believe that. Really, doctor?"
And he goes, "No, we really are. Test scores are declining. Parents are unhappy. Faculties are unhappy. Administrations are unhappy. Students are unhappy. And I put together a blue-ribbon panel of educational experts for six weeks this summer to discuss how can we reface and reimagine education in our district. And you seem to have a very unique perspective on education, Mr. Lambert. Would you consider being a part of that panel?"
And I said, "I would."
And so, I went to the first meeting. They all introduced themselves and they all had lots and lots and lots of letters after their name.
One was the director of curriculum development, another the director of elementary testing, another the director of high school counseling.
And finally, I introduced myself and said, "Hi, I'm Stephen Lambert. I'm a homeschool dad."
And every head in the room turned to look at me sitting in the back because up until that point, as far as I know, none of those men and women had ever seen a homeschooler and lived to tell about it.
So, they began the journey. The first night of the discussion and the person in charge of the summer series said, "You know, we can all make a long list of things that are wrong with public education, but let's not start there. Let's start on a positive note as we explore this difficult topic. Number one, responsibility for educating children rests with the state."
And I raised my hand and I said, "That's not right."
And he said, "What do you mean that's not right?"
And I said, "No, the responsibility for raising and educating children rests with their parents and only insofar as they choose to delegate some or all of their authority to you, does the state have anything to say about it?"
And he said, "Let's take a brief recess." So, it's probably just as well that I didn't tell him that God told me that because that would have made his head explode completely.
But anyway, that was 40 years ago. So, lots of water under the bridge since then in public education, I'm sorry to say has not gotten better, but instead it's gotten worse.
Laura Dugger: (8:44 - 9:07) Well, and I think within that, you've even brought up some questions that people have about homeschooling families when you first were talking about the standardized tests.
So, do you get these questions? A lot of times, do your children have any friends?
Did they grow up socialized or how did they compare to their peers?
Those types of things that there may be an underlying myth.
Steve Lambert: (9:09 - 11:20) Oh, for sure. Those are the common questions.
I was so ignorant of homeschooling in 1981 that I didn't even notice. I didn't even know the word socialization.
I was too ignorant to even know that, but I did know friendship.
And in fact, I prayed and I asked the Lord, I said, "How are my kids going to have friends if they're homeschooled?"
And as you and some of your listeners may understand, I felt like the Lord spoke to me, not audibly, but in a sense that I clearly understood his heart.
And he said, "Do you want friends for your children?"
And I said, "Yes, Lord, of course I do more than anything."
And he said, "And so friends come from being in the midst of people." And I went, yes.
And then I paused and I could sense him kind of waiting on me. And I said, "Don't they?"
And I felt like the Lord said, "No, if you want friends for your children, ask me. I'm the author of friendship."
And he reminded me of David and Jonathan, for example.
He said, in my imagination, at least he said, "This very night, I can hear the prayers of tens of thousands of people around the earth who are surrounded by people, but who are contemplating suicide this very night because they're so lonely. Friends don't come from being in large groups. Friends come from heaven, ask me."
And so, that became a prayer. And neither of our children, none of our grandchildren have ever lacked for friends, lots of friends, close and intimate friends through sports, through music, through their church connections.
And it really has turned out to be true that friendship, whether you're an adult, a child, or a teen, if you're lacking friends in your life right now, getting involved in more and more people and more and more busyness isn't necessarily the answer.
Just stop and ask the Lord, "Lord, I'm lonely. I need some friends in my life. Would you bring me some?"
And our daughter's first close friend, after I prayed that prayer was a number of months later.
It was a little girl who had immigrated all the way from South Africa.
Her father had immigrated to the United States after becoming a believer to attend a Bible college and then came to Kansas City to attend a seminary.
And his daughter became my daughter's best friend, but she came from halfway around the globe.
And since then, there've been so many that we couldn't count them all.
Laura Dugger: (11:22 - 11:49) Wow. Steve, that is such a powerful and encouraging parenting tip, really just in every phase that we know where to turn and that God is the one who actually has the power to make these prayers answered.
So, thank you for sharing that. What would you say are some wonderful aspects of your lifestyle that were not available to families who were not home educating their children?
Steve Lambert: (11:50 - 14:20) You get to see your kids come to life, to discover who they are and why they were made and to watch them learn to read and to watch them explore and discover God's amazing creation in the world around them.
You can travel with your kids. If you're homeschooling, you can take them wherever you go and you can have school in the car or school in the park or school at the lake.
My kids, instead of reading about some of the national parks and reading about some of the great museums in America, we went and we saw them firsthand and in the process we got to see them begin to blossom and figure out who they were and why they were created.
We're seeing with all that's happening today, a struggle that really so much boils down to children and teenagers and young adults having absolutely no idea who they are and they're questioning everything from their gender to their faith, to philosophy, to finances, to all those kinds of ecological issues.
They really have no idea who they are and it's because in the classroom, nobody ever teaches them.
You know, it says in Luke 6:40, "that a student is not greater than his teacher, but when he is fully trained, a student will be like his teacher."
Discipleship is really about teaching and if you're not disciplining your children, somebody is.
And in a public-school classroom, the wisdom of Dr. Luke suggests that your children will grow up to be just like their teachers and that's exactly what we're seeing in today's culture.
So, if you want to have some input, if you want to see your children blossom, I mean, there's nothing more exciting than seeing your children learn to read for the first time and it's not that difficult.
I mean, I often tell parents if you were trapped on a desert island, just you and your child, could you teach them to read?
Well, sure you could. You take a stick and you make the letter A in the sand and you'd say, this is an A and then this is a B and this is the number two and this is the number three.
There's nothing more rewarding at the end of life. And I can say this at age 73, I can say this without any reservation.
The single most important thing you can do is to trust your life to Jesus.
The second most important thing you can do is find somebody who's like-minded and marry them and make that marriage work through thick and through thin.
And the third most important thing you'll ever do is raising your children and watching them become the men and women God created and take their place in a dying culture.
Laura Dugger: (14:22 - 14:42) And you have years of wisdom journeying through being a homeschooling dad.
And so, again, I would love to hear more about your journey. So, if we go back to 1981, I'm assuming that all of the curriculum was not available that we have available today.
And so, how did you and your wife practically live this out?
Steve Lambert: (14:44 - 22:14) Well, you're right, Laura. There wasn't any of the curriculum, which in many respects was a blessing.
To be honest, there's so much material out there today. It's a little overwhelming.
If you go to some of the larger homeschool conventions, you can find as many as seven or 800 vendors there, each telling why their particular curriculum is the one that you ought to choose.
But back then there were no choices. And in fact, we contacted a couple of Christian curriculum publishers and asked to buy their materials.
And they said, "No, we can't sell you because that would upset our Christian school customers because they had the exclusive right to this material."
And so, we began with a old set of world books and a stack of children's reading books.
And I think we did go to the yard sale, and we found an American history book that was published, I think in 1943. And so, it was somewhat incomplete because it didn't explain who won World War II.
It just kind of ended in the middle of the war, but we began that journey.
And what we discovered was that God consistently brought us the tools, the resources, and the people that our children needed.
I would come home on certain days and I'd find Jane kind of crying in her bedroom and the girls crying in their bedroom.
And because they were, we were trying to replicate school at home. And that's completely the wrong direction.
Well, it turns out we didn't want school at home. We wanted homeschooling, which is an entirely different proposition.
And so, on that journey, Jane began to pray. And she said, "Lord, this is not what I had in mind for our children. I did not imagine that we would be fighting and arguing over. You will do your homework. I won't. You can't make me. Yes, I can. How can I teach my children?"
And he said, "Why don't you read to them?" And she said, "Well, I do read to them, but how can I teach them?"
And he said, "Why don't you read to them?" She said, "No, no, I understand. I love to read to them, but how do I teach them?"
And he said, "Why don't you read to them?" And so, after the third time, they began focusing more on reading aloud.
And that just naturally led to the entire world around us. It doesn't really matter what you're reading.
God gave educators and parents a secret weapon, and it's called curiosity.
And so, if you can engage that curiosity and you read them a story, it doesn't matter what three bears, and suddenly they want to know more about bears.
And how does this hibernation thing work and where do they live? And do we have any near our home?
And can you find bears? And what's the difference between a black bear and a grizzly bear? And how long do they live? And what do they eat?
And suddenly you become the guide rather than the opposing force.
Suddenly you begin to sit on the same side of the desk with your students and you go on a learning journey together, because particularly in those early years up to middle school, really the only lessons, the lesson that you really need to teach children is to fall in love with learning.
If they learn that you're home free, because they will self-direct and self-educate right on through high school, graduate school, they'll be lifelong learners.
But if you reduce education to nothing more than carrots and sticks and dangling promises and threats, they will quickly learn that learning is not fun.
And we just need to get through this as quickly as we can so that we can get on with life and the things that are truly important.
And if you doubt that, I often tell parents who are contemplating homeschooling, if you doubt that, just look in the mirror, go back and just think about, for example, your fifth grade social studies exam.
Tell me who the Norman Conqueror was. When did the Norman Conquest take place? How did that change European history?
And you'll say, wow, I remember. I've heard of the Norman Conqueror, the Norman Conquest, but honestly, I don't remember it yet.
Why not? Because honestly, I just learned it long enough to take the test. And then I forgot. And your kids are just like you. Many attribute Einstein with the saying that doing the same thing the same way and expecting some sort of a different result is insane.
So, it stands to reason if you teach your kids the same way you were taught to memorize names and dates and highlight pages and books for Friday's quiz, they'll end up with the same results.
They won't particularly be interested in learning. They won't remember 99% of all the things that you checked off your checklist that you covered with the children, but they don't remember any of it.
So, through reading, that opened the door for the girls to begin to ask questions.
And suddenly, like I said, instead of being in that tug of war, where as a parent or a teacher, you're trying to force children to memorize and regurgitate long enough to take a test, you suddenly become a resource person and you take them to the library and you take them to the natural history museum and you take them to the art gallery and you take them on nature hikes in the woods.
And one question always begets ten more. I remember that when my oldest daughter, her firstborn was about two or three and she was getting ready for bed and in the bathtub and she said, "Mama, can I ask you a question?"
And my daughter said, "No." She said, "Please, mama, just one question."
She said, "No, honey, you've already had your 472 questions for today. Mama's exhausted. Finish your bath. Let's go to bed. You can ask a question tomorrow."
She said, "Please, mama, please. Just one more question." She said, "All right, one more question. And then it's bedtime."
She goes, "Okay. So, like, how does electricity work, mom?"
So, that curiosity that God gave those children is the spark that makes homeschooling, not only a joy, but makes it infinitely doable.
Whether you dropped out of high school or whether you have a doctorate in education, if you can keep that curiosity alive, your kids are going to be great.
And let me add one other thought. We live in a world, the dean of a medical school, school of medicine at a university told me not too long ago, he said, "Do you realize that the body of knowledge of the human body doubles every year?"
We learned more in 2022 about the human body than we had learned in all of history through 2021. And he said, we get the best and the brightest, the top one tenth of 1% who come here to medical school.
And there's no way they can possibly keep up with the amount of new knowledge that's being developed.
And if you ask someone who has a doctorate in any subject, the most tempting question to ask is, so you must know pretty much everything there is to know about that.
And if they're even remotely honest, the first thing they'll say to you is, "Oh no, no, no, no. The farther we explore, the deeper we get, the more we realize we haven't even scratched the surface. There's so much we don't understand. The more we learn, the more we realize how much we yet have to learn."
And so, that's an infinite loop of getting children to begin to manage their own education. We've said for years, you know, he got the best education money could buy, or they gave him the best education.
You can't give a child an education. They're education resistant.
The child has to learn to want to know, to be hungry and thirsty to know more about the world that God created around them and how it works.
And homeschooling is a wonderful vehicle to make a lifetime learning out of your son or your daughter.
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The more I learn about homeschooling, the more encouragement I've heard from homeschooling parents, they will talk about there is always a learning gap no matter how you were educated.
And so, I love how you're addressing that with lifelong curiosity that we will continue learning our whole life.
But you also mentioned this word, if parents are considering homeschooling, you said it's so doable.
And when you're talking about Jane hearing from the Lord, read to your children, I find that so encouraging.
That's my favorite activity to do with our girls. That was the impetus for your family launching Five in a Row.
Is that right?
Steve Lambert: (28:24 - 32:17) That is right. Over a period of time, Jane certainly did math mechanics in a math workbook, and she used some specific structured approach to phonics to teach reading.
But other than that, it was largely an open palette in which reading helped direct the course of education.
And that became something that many of her homeschool friends as the years went by found enviable.
They said, "You know, how does that work?" And she said, "Well, you just read aloud to your children, and then there's opportunities in an illustrated book to talk about the illustrations, the perspective, vanishing point, type of colors, the difference between watercolor and gouache, complementary colors on the color wheel, history, where did our story take place, what's it like, where is it on the map, what do people eat there?"
And they said, “Yeah, we don't get that.” So, she began to just really as kind of a love gift for a few girlfriends, began to write some lesson plans to go with some popular children's books.
And one thing led to another, and that was in 1994. So, this is our 29th year in publication, and I think Five in a Row has won pretty much every award that's out there, from Reader's Awards, Magazine Awards.
It's more than 100,000 families, 600,000 children have used Five in a Row in the last 29 years, and virtually no advertising.
It's almost exclusively by word of mouth, from a veteran homeschool mom pulling aside a young mom who just spent $1,300 on a massive stack of curriculum and is completely overwhelmed just three weeks into September, to say, you know what, we tried that, and we tried this, and we tried this other program, and we spent a lot of money.
And then an older mom told me about Five in a Row , let me show you how it works.
And suddenly that changes everything for so many of these young moms.
Most of the problems that new homeschoolers are facing simply are not issues at all.
And the crazy part is that there are some things they ought to be worrying about, but they don't know enough yet to worry about the correct areas.
But both the obvious and the more subtle areas, God has answers.
If he's invited you to go on the homeschool journey, he has something amazing in mind for your family.
There are very few born homeschoolers, very few 15- or 16-year-old adolescent young women tell their school counselor, "You know what, I'd like to spend my life living in a two-income world on a single income and stay locked up with little people all day long without any peer support and have my mother-in-law and my sister-in-law think I'm crazy."
That's not on most young women's radars, but it begins, for most families, the same way it began for our family.
Hypothetically, honey, what would you think if, as the finger of God, the same God that said, let the waters be parted, the one that said, Lazarus, come forth, the one that said, let there be light, says, "Why don't you homeschool your kids?"
And so, you become what we often call accidental homeschoolers.
It suddenly occurs to you something that you swore you would never, ever do.
But the good news is the one who invited you is faithful. Love is a powerful motivator.
We all have stuff, and God has tried to make us deal with our stuff for years, and we've been resistant in many cases.
So, he invites us to the covenant of marriage so that we'll have a living witness to remind us of our stuff.
Honey, why do you always wait to the last minute? Honey, why do you get so upset?
And if we're still stubborn, then he invites us to have children so that we have several living witnesses.
But if we remain stiff-necked, finally he invites us to homeschool with children.
And this way we have a house full of living witnesses all day long that say, "Mama, how come this and why do you do that?"
And suddenly we begin to grow in ways we never thought possible through the medium of homeschooling. It strengthens marriages.
It grows us up in Christ. It causes us to deal with our stuff.
It's amazing what it does for our children.
Laura Dugger: (32:18 - 32:44) It does seem like progressive sanctification, how the Lord has built that in within the family.
And I just appreciate how you've gone before us. And so, if someone's feeling nudged in this direction, can you paint a picture, even using Five in a Row curriculum, what kind of prep would that require for the homeschooling parent?
And what kind of schedule would their day look like?
Steve Lambert: (32:46 - 39:39) Homeschooling is essentially tutorial education, and that's always been the realm of kings and the super wealthy who hired an individual tutor for their children.
Because of homeschooling, our children can have a tutor. And tutorial education is so inherently efficient that even if you're terrible at it, your kids are going to do pretty darn well.
So, when we start out, we're tempted to emulate the classroom. So, we think, well, my daughter's six.
She was going to go into first grade, so we need to start at 7:45 in the morning and we need to go until 3:45 in the afternoon with 20 minutes for lunch.
Nothing could be further from the truth. You can work with a kindergarten or first grader; 90 minutes a day is probably overkill.
So, it's something that anybody can do in their schedule, at least in those early years.
And it works best when it works for you and for your children.
If your kiddo is a late-morning sleeper, trust me, they're not going to be at their best at 7:45.
Don't let them sleep until 9:30. That's okay. You'll realize, for example, when you have teenagers, that they don't come to life until sometime after 11:00 p.m.
That's when they want to come into your bedroom and ask you important life questions when you're struggling to try to get to sleep.
So, first of all, you work with your children's schedule to some degree.
You work with the schedule that works for you. And you work where it works for you. If you're sick or if you're dealing with morning sickness and pregnancy, homeschool's going to happen in the bed today, kids.
Come on, gather around. We're going to read a story.
If it's a nice day, homeschooling is going to happen at the park today.
We're going to go on a nature hike. We're going to look at trees and wildlife and streams and rocks and waters.
And we're going to learn to take our paints with us.
And we're going to learn to paint the sky the way the illustrator did in our story this week that we're reading in Five in a Row.
When Jane began, she actually would take the girls to a cemetery nearby where everything was beautifully mowed and there were beautiful trees and lakes.
So, Five in a Row is built around the concept of reading a classic children's book, which Jane has selected thoughtfully and curated.
And you read it for five days in a row.
And so, on the first day, you're going to read the story aloud.
And the children just want to know how did the story ended, what happened?
A very surface, cursory reading of the story, really thinking only about the plot.
But, you know, as you go back and watch a movie the second or the third time or read a book sometimes or play the second or third time, you discover there's a whole lot more beneath the surface.
So, the first day they look at, on Mondays they do social studies.
So, they look at the setting of the story. Where did it take place?
How did people live in the 17th century? How did people live today in Japan or Australia?
How did people live along the Ohio River in the 1800s? What sort of foods did they eat?
What was their language like? Let's find it on a map.
Let's learn more about it and maybe plan to cook a meal from that region or that period of history later in the week for the family.
And you can make that as complex as you want.
You can have the children make shopping lists and invitations and invite Grandma and Grandpa and help cook the meal and learn liquid and dry measure and cups and quarts and all of that and put a towel over their arm and serve the meal to Grandma and Grandpa and tell them about what they learned about Spain or Italy or France or Canada this week.
So, now you've read the story and you've learned something about what's going on in the story.
So, Tuesday, we go back and we read it a second time.
This time we look at language arts, so new vocabulary words that came up in our story this week, new creative writing techniques that maybe there was a cliffhanger that made us want to turn the page and read and see what was next or maybe the author was really great at asking questions or writing dialogue or opening sentences that create curiosity.
And so, we learned some of those techniques, and we can try them ourselves.
And even a four- or five-year-old can dictate while Mom writes down their story, and they can illustrate it later and share it with Dad.
And then on Wednesday, we look at the art. So, what did the artist teach us? What medium did they use?
Was this charcoal? Was it pen and ink? Was it watercolor or gouache? Was it oils or pastels?
How did they draw the water? Look, they drew reflections on the water. It's not just blue paper, is it?
You can see the same colors in the water that were on the shore on the opposite side.
You know what, kids? Let's get out your colored pencils or your crayons or your pastels.
Let's try drawing water more realistically the way the illustrator taught us in our story today.
And maybe learn something about famous artists who had similar styles of Degas or Renoir or Van Gogh or whoever.
Thursday, we do applied mathematics, which is not the same as math.
You're going to be doing math for 15 to 30 minutes every day in a sequential approach.
But this is about learning, you know, the difference between a square and a rectangle.
Well, they have four sides, but what's the difference? They're not all equal on the rectangle, are they?
We're going to learn, like I said, how many pints in a quart, how many quarts in a gallon.
And then on Fridays, we do science lessons. So, there's lots of opportunities in every children's book to learn more about why does the sky look blue?
Why is the grass green? Why do some things float when you put them in the water and some things sink?
And all of a sudden, you're at the kitchen sink with a stopper in it.
You fill it with water, and you've gotten a penny and a cork and a birthday candle and whatever is in the kitchen junk drawer.
And suddenly, the kids are learning about buoyancy, and they're testing things, and they're predicting their answers, learning more about the world of science and creation.
So, typical day, long story short, for a beginning homeschooler with a kindergarten-aged child, probably going to be 15, 20 minutes maybe for phonics, 15 to 20 minutes for math, which at that level is simply learning the digits and haven't even thought about adding yet.
And then another 30 open-ended minutes, 30 minutes to 90 minutes for exploring Five in a Row or whatever it is that you're reading that day.
And for some days, that might turn into two hours.
In fact, there are some days where it turns into all the way to bedtime and continues over the next two days.
If you're learning about the solar system, and suddenly that catches their attention, and they want to go to the planetarium nearby, and they want to borrow their uncle's telescope, they eat, sleep, and drink astronomy for the next two or three days.
And frankly, that's not an interruption in the curriculum. That's the answer to a prayer.
God, please help my children grow curious. Help them nurture their love of learning. Cause them to want to learn.
And sooner or later, we're going to learn about astronomy anyway, but all too often, it's while the kids are fascinated by a bug that just crawled in the room.
And so, the smart mom puts astronomy on the shelf for the moment and learns about insects. Or vice versa.
You're trying to learn about insects, and they're staring out the window looking at moons still visible in the western sky that hasn't set yet.
So, helping children learn in the proper season is another key to making it all work. It's so flexible, and it's so simple.
Laura Dugger: (39:41 - 40:33) Guess what? We are no longer an audio-only podcast.
We now have video included as well. If you want to view the conversation each week, make sure you watch our videos.
We're on YouTube, and you can access videos or find answers to any of your other questions about the podcast when you visit thesavvysauce.com.
Well, that flexibility sounds so freeing and attractive, and as you explain it, it just sounds like such a lovely educational experience.
And yet, I know a lot of homeschooling parents fear is that when their children graduate from the home, they wonder if they've done enough and how they'll perform out in, quote, the real world.
So, what was your experience as you and Jane launched your first child to college?
Steve Lambert: (40:35 - 46:24) Well, we actually sent our first one to college a week after she was 16. And to be honest, I wouldn't recommend that again for a variety of reasons.
She had a four-point-something or other GPA in college beginning at just barely 16. But being academically ready and being emotionally ready are two different things.
And so, probably, if for no other reason, we missed out on two more years of just exploring and learning together in home education.
But when she went, she was the top of her class pretty much in every subject.
Almost every study done of homeschool students by private industry and government suggests that students, on average, score about 20% higher if they were home-educated in every subject except math, where they're about the same, than their public school peers.
And it's now been more than 20 years since Harvard set out, and they kind of were one of the earliest ones to create full-time recruiters for homeschool students because universities and the marketplace are looking today for homeschoolers.
They realize that these kids are the leaders today. I saw a study of a small private university, I think in the Carolinas, if I recall, and they only had 3,000 students on campus, of which 90 were homeschooled, so 3% of the student body.
But of the 12 elected student leadership positions, student advisor to the dean, senior class president, whatever, 11 of the 12 were homeschool students.
So, even their peers recognized that these were the leaders in their community.
And we now live in a world where nobody seems to want to work. Everywhere you go, there's help-wanted signs.
And we've seen so many stories from friends and customers whose children were homeschooled who said it's a tremendous opportunity right now in the marketplace if you just show up and you're just semi-dedicated to actually doing the job.
I interviewed a guy, well, he actually came up to ask me questions after I spoke, in Chicago, as a matter of fact.
And he was the head of human resources for a large Fortune 50 company, and he said he had, I don't know, a quarter of a million employees.
And so, I asked him, I said, so this is in May, you're out recruiting, I assume.
And he says, “Yeah, I've got six recruiting teams crisscrossing American college campuses trying to recruit new employees.”
And I said, “So you're obviously looking for the highest-grade point average or highest graduating class position and competing for those students.”
He said, “No, not at all.” And I said, no? I said, “So IQ or SAT score?”
He goes, “No, none of that.” I said, “Why?” He said, “Let me tell you something.”
He said, “The average new hire costs us $70,000 to train. And this has been 15 years ago.
So, it's probably 170,000 a day. And no matter what your discipline, whether you're in sales, marketing, quality control, engineering, whatever, we're gonna spend the first year teaching you how we do it here, not how you learned it in college.
If we aren't successful in our recruiting, our company will go bankrupt. This is our largest single expense is personnel.”
And we have learned over the years that graduating class position or grade point average or SAT score IQ is totally irrelevant when it comes to determining who'll be successful in the company and who won't.
And I was a little taken aback and I said, “Well, if it's not any of those things, then you just throw darts at resumes?”
He goes, “No, no, no.” He said, “We can accurately identify these students in the most cases.” I said, “So what do you look for?” And he said, “Well, you're gonna laugh.” I said, “Maybe.” He said, “First and foremost, by far and away, the ability to get along and work well with others.”
He said, “If you can't, you're gonna get cross ways of your boss or another employee and either quit or get fired in the first six months.
The second is to be able to complete a job, see it through to completion and meet the deadline.
And number three, if you're really, really golden, the ability to work within the constraints of a budget.
Those are the things that are successful, whether you work for our company or whether you're an entrepreneur or whether you're a homemaker, whatever you do in life.”
So, with that in mind, I've spoken all over the country and encourage parents. These are things that we need to be working on. There are things that are not being worked on in the classroom.
So, look for opportunities to hand more of the education off to your students, let them plan what do I wanna study for the next two days, the next two weeks, the next two months?
Where am I gonna get the resources to discover that by the time they're in high school?
I'm gonna give you a budget to work with. There's $200, you can buy some resources, tools that you think would be useful in the process.
Where do we need to be in project management to start the process?
Where should we be by the end of week two? Where should we be by the end of the month?
These are the skills that employers are looking for and so many parents have told us that their kids have just rocketed in the marketplace.
My final question to this guy was, so are you finding bright young men and women who can do the job?
He goes, there's never been brighter, more thoroughly educated young men and women who can do the job.
He said, the problem is I can't find any who will do the job.
I can't find people who will do even four hours work for eight hours pay.
They wanna go to Starbucks, they wanna be on their cell phone, they wanna be on Facebook, they wanna be talking to their friends, taking care of their online banking, paying bills.
And so, character comes first. And if we teach our children their purpose and their place in this world, if we help them find and discover their giftedness and their aptitudes and invite them along those pathways and we increasingly turn more and more of that education over to them in the high school years where they begin to take responsibility for their own education, we're going to end up with not just capable but outstanding young men and women who can quickly take their place in our culture and rise to the very top because frankly, there's very little competition.
Laura Dugger: (46:26 - 46:36) Wow. Well, Steve, is there anything else that we haven't yet covered?
Any scriptures or stories to share that you wanna make sure we don't miss?
Steve Lambert: (46:37 - 50:16) The thing we want people to take away from all of that is not that the only way to raise your kids is to homeschool or that God doesn't approve of anything else.
The point is, listen to God and do what he said, but don't put your fingers in your ears because he often calls us to things that we really maybe didn't wanna hear and obedience is better than sacrifice.
One of my favorite stories, when our oldest daughter started to college, she went through placement counseling that summer and the placement counselor said, "You know, I don't think I've..." That was in 1991. He said, "I don't think I've ever had a student who was homeschooled."
So, that's pretty interesting. And she said, "Okay, great." And there were 30,000 students at this college and she was not only at that point, as far as we know, the only or first homeschooler, but she was also the youngest, having just turned 16 that in the middle of August.
And so, when she began, one of the prereq classes that every incoming freshman had to take was public speaking.
And she realized much to her horror that her public speaking teacher was the guy who had helped with her placement counseling earlier in the summer.
And she really didn't want anybody to know she'd been homeschooled, but she said there were returning GIs from Operation Desert Storm.
There were empty nest moms coming back to finish the degree. There were pre-med students. There were student athletes.
There were just every kind of student in that class because everybody had to take public speaking.
And he said, the very first day, the teacher said, "I'd like for everybody to give a six-minute speech on Monday. That's the best way to do this is just to jump in on whether or not you think we ought to be involved in nation building. Except for you, Ms. Lambert, and I'd like for you to give six-minute speech on what it was like to be homeschooled."
And she slunk down below her desk and tried to disappear into the floor.
And she said, "Dad, what am I gonna do?" I said, "Well, just get up and tell them."
So, she did. And she said, you know, as far as I can tell over the course of that semester, she said every single person in that class, whether they were 18 or 58, found me somewhere on the campus in the quadrangle at the library, the cafeteria, in the parking lot, and said in one way or another, their own words, "You're so lucky your parents cared enough about you to be involved in your education. I'm jealous. I'm envious. I wish my parents had been."
She said, but the one that killed me was a girl who was 18, had just graduated from a prestigious high school the previous May.
And she began to tell her story. And she said, "When I began high school four years ago, my goal was to become valedictorian of my graduating class. I've never been at a sleepover. I've never been to a, you know, skating party or, you know, movies. All I've done is study for four years. And she said, I was in AP classes all the way through and my GPA was like 4.7887. And there was this guy and his was 4.78779. And he and I competed every year in every class. And it came down to the final test and the final class and the final semester. And I beat him by two points."
And so, last May, she said, my dream came true.
And I stood on the football field and I gave the commencement address, the valedictorian address to 4,000 of my peers, their parents, civic leaders, laity, community leaders of faith. And both of my parents were too busy to attend.
She said, "I wish my parents cared and had been as involved in my education as yours were. You're very lucky."
And she said, "Dad, it just killed me to hear her story."
And I said, "I don't have any answers, honey, but our joy was raising you girls and seeing you become the people that God intended you to become."
Laura Dugger: (50:18 - 50:43) Wow, Steve, that is so powerful.
And what an incredible charge to leave each of us with to go and do likewise.
And as we wind down our time together, you are already familiar that we are called The Savvy Sauce because savvy is synonymous with practical knowledge.
And so, as my final question for you today, what is your Savvy Sauce?
Steve Lambert: (50:45 - 51:59) Read aloud, read often, read to your spouse, read to your kids.
Jane and I continue, we've been together now 57 years, and we still read aloud to one another every single day.
I read aloud to my kids still on occasion, my grandkids still, my daughters are in their 40s.
My grandkids, but that was the joy. And that's the thing that when all else fails, when your relationship is struggling, when your homeschool day is falling flat on its face, get a great book and snuggle together with your kids and read out loud.
It's in that process that their imaginations are birthed, their angst is quieted, and disagreements between spouses can suddenly be pushed aside because suddenly you're facing sorrow and you have a sword in your hand or you're coming down the Mississippi River on a riverboat or whatever it is that you, it unlocks doors that sometimes we didn't even know were locked.
So, that's the Savvy Sauce that's worked for us. Read aloud, read often, and don't let a day go by that you don't read to your children, even when your kids are 18. And if you have little ones, read to the little ones and I guarantee you the high schoolers will come around and listen to every day.
Laura Dugger: (52:00 - 52:23) I love that so much. That is wonderful.
And I have very much appreciated your insights and wisdom that you shared with us today.
So, thank you for the legacy that you and Jane have been building for years.
Thank you for being a faithful and intentional father and husband.
And thank you so much, Steve, for being my guest.
Steve Lambert: (52:24 - 52:29) Laura, it's been my pleasure. I've appreciated the opportunity. Thank you for what you do.
God bless you.
Laura Dugger: (52:29 - 55:45) Thank you. One more thing before you go. Have you heard the term gospel before?
It simply means good news. And I want to share the best news with you.
But it starts with the bad news.
Every single one of us were born sinners, but Christ desires to rescue us from our sin, which is something we cannot do for ourselves.
This means there is absolutely no chance we can make it to heaven on our own.
So, for you and for me, it means we deserve death, and we can never pay back the sacrifice we owe to be saved.
We need a Savior. But God loved us so much, he made a way for his only son to willingly die in our place as the perfect substitute.
This gives us hope of life forever in right relationship with him. That is good news. Jesus lived the perfect life we could never live and died in our place for our sin.
This was God's plan to make a way to reconcile with us so that God can look at us and see Jesus.
We can be covered and justified through the work Jesus finished if we choose to receive what He has done for us.
Romans 10:9 says, “That if you confess with your mouth Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved.”
So, would you pray with me now?
Heavenly Father, thank you for sending Jesus to take our place.
I pray someone today right now is touched and chooses to turn their life over to you.
Will you clearly guide them and help them take their next step in faith to declare you as Lord of their life?
We trust you to work and change lives now for eternity. In Jesus' name we pray. Amen.
If you prayed that prayer, you are declaring him for me, so me for him.
You get the opportunity to live your life for him.
And at this podcast, we're called The Savvy Sauce for a reason.
We want to give you practical tools to implement the knowledge you have learned. So, you ready to get started?
First, tell someone. Say it out loud. Get a Bible.
The first day I made this decision, my parents took me to Barnes & Noble and let me choose my own Bible.
I selected the Quest NIV Bible, and I love it. You can start by reading the book of John.
Also, get connected locally, which just means tell someone who's a part of a church in your community that you made a decision to follow Christ.
I'm assuming they will be thrilled to talk with you about further steps, such as going to church and getting connected to other believers to encourage you.
We want to celebrate with you too, so feel free to leave a comment for us here if you did make a decision to follow Christ.
We also have show notes included where you can read scripture that describes this process. And finally, be encouraged.
Luke 15:10 says, “In the same way I tell you, there is rejoicing in the presence of the angels of God over one sinner who repents.”
The heavens are praising with you for your decision today.
And if you've already received this good news, I pray you have someone to share it with.
You are loved and I look forward to meeting you here next time.
Welcome to The Savvy Sauce
Practical chats for intentional living
A faith-based podcast and resources to help you grow closer to Jesus and others. Expect encouragement, surprises, and hope here. Each episode offers lively interviews with fascinating guests such as therapists, authors, non-profit founders, and business leaders.
They share their best practices and savvy tips we can replicate to make our daily life and relationships more enjoyable!
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