Education
Teach Your Kids to THINK: The Power of Logic with Kathy Gibbens
In this episode of the Schoolhouse Rocked Podcast, host Abby Rinella welcomes Kathy Gibbons to discuss the importance of teaching logic to children. They explore how critical thinking skills can empow...
Teach Your Kids to THINK: The Power of Logic with Kathy Gibbens
Education •
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Interactive Transcript
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Let's go back and forth.
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If the goal is to buckle toward truth,
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we don't have to be afraid because of the thing
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that we believe is true.
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We will wind up back there again.
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We can put anything on the table
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and we can wrestle with it because the goal
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is always to find truth.
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People are so afraid because they think,
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what if I discovered that the thing
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that I believe isn't true?
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Well, wouldn't you want to know that?
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Hey, everybody.
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Welcome back to the Schoolhouse Rocked Podcast.
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I am Abby Rinella and I am super excited
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to be your host this week and next
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with another amazing guest, Kathy Gibbons,
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who I cannot wait to share her with you
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and tell you why I'm so excited to be here with her.
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But first, I need to thank our sponsor, CTC Math.
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Okay, Kathy Gibbons, we have been trying to record
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for several months now and we are finally here
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and I have to open this up for everybody
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to know this hilarious story.
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So a long time ago, I found Kathy Gibbons
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and I will explain how and I called the producers of this show
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and said, oh my goodness, I have to interview this woman.
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I discovered her, like I've discovered this person
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and they are like, okay, Abby,
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everybody knows Kathy Gibbons.
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Like everybody knows Kathy Gibbons.
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I would be like, hey, can Ben Carson come on the podcast?
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Like people know who she is.
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And I was sort of sad because I thought like
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I just found the gold in the homeschool world
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and I was gonna be the person that's like,
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you guys, look who I discovered.
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But to my, I did not know, but everybody knows now
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Kathy Gibbons is actually incredibly well known
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in the homeschool community
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and has actually been on school house rock podcast
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before several years ago.
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But I discovered her because I'm a homeschool mom
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and I was scrolling through stuff
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to try to teach my kids logic
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and I stumbled upon this incredible podcast called
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Filter It Through a Brain Cell.
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And since that day, Kathy Gibbons has been in my living room
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every single morning of my homeschool
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because we are using her incredible podcast
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as part of our curriculum,
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which we're gonna talk about in a little bit.
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So Kathy Gibbons, welcome on screen.
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I actually get to see what you look like in real life,
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but I'm telling you, I spend every morning with you.
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So I'm glad to really be spending it now with you.
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Oh my gosh, Abby, can I just tell you how much that makes
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my day to hear this story?
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That is so odd.
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I mean, as a podcaster, I love it, as a mother, I love it.
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And just as a fellow homeschooling mom,
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like you have made my day.
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So thank you so much.
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I'm so happy to be here.
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Well, I appreciate you making my day to do the hard thing
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of helping me to teach my kids logic.
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But before we dive into why that's important
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and why we're even doing that,
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will you just share a little bit about you and your family
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and just share with everybody who you are?
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Yeah, so I'm Kathy.
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I have been a homeschool mom for 13 years
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and my daughter just graduated.
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We have homeschooled her since the very beginning.
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So K through 12 and she graduated in May.
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So it's kind of weird.
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I'm in this weird place of oh my goodness.
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Now what?
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Like what's next?
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What am I going to do?
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What am I going to do with myself?
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But it has been a fantastic journey.
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We have loved homeschooling.
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It has fit our family very, very well.
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And I just, it's something that I love supporting.
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I love supporting homeschool families.
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I love being a part of this community.
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And so yeah, I'm super excited to be here.
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That's exciting.
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And courage.
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So just one daughter.
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Just one daughter.
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Wow, we might talk.
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I mean, let's see if we have time.
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If not, we're going to have to have you come back
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to talk about what it's like homeschooling a single.
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And really child.
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Yes.
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Because one, a lot of people do that.
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And two, we're all going to have to at some point
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when all of our older's launched,
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we're all going to be left with one.
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So I did not realize that.
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Let's, I would love to talk a little bit about that today
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after we talk about the all important topic of logic.
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So the your little tagline for a filter it through a brain cell.
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Everybody needs to go right now on their podcast,
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what app, whatever that is.
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And you need to subscribe to it.
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It her little tagline is teaching.
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What is it?
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Not what to tell me of the little tagline.
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Teaching kids not what to think, but how to think.
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But how to think.
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And I think that that really sums up to me.
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That's the tagline for homeschool.
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Right.
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We're teaching kids not what to think,
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but how to think and it reminds me of that quote.
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And I don't know who said it,
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but we're not filling buckets, we're lighting fires, right?
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But this is the thing is I always thought that logic was either,
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like just something that you had,
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like everybody has logic, like common sense, right?
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We have book smart and we have common sense slash logic.
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And then 2020 hit.
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And I looked around the world and I'm like,
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oh, goodness, nobody really has logic.
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Like we've lost our ever loving minds.
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Like people are not thinking.
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People are, I mean, it really brought to light that logic is just not innate.
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Like it's not just something that our kids grow up having.
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We actually have to be intentional in teaching our kids logic.
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And so I dove in and I'm like, I tried all the different logic curriculums.
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I tried all the different.
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And where I struggled is there's all these terminologies, right?
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Like the straw man and the red herring and the, and my kids were like,
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it just became a game of how to memorize the word.
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And then what part of logic it was.
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And then I stumbled upon your podcast and you do use those terminologies.
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But what you do is you make it applicable to real life.
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And so one of my questions is,
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is now that I'm learning like parents,
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we have to teach our kids logic.
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This isn't innate.
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And I want you to share a little bit one about that.
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And like that's, that was a new discovery to me in 2020.
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And I'm pretty sure the whole world figured that out real quick in 2020.
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But explain why that is.
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And then I also want to know what,
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what inspired in you to go down this road of making logic a passion
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and helping us parents to learn it.
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Yep. No.
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So you set me up so well.
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Asking the question about kind of how it got started in also 2020.
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Because that's what got started.
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So the school year 2019, 2020,
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my daughter was in the seventh grade.
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And I was leading her, we were part of classical conversations.
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So at home school, we had a little home school group where we met once a week
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with, she had a class of 12 kids.
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OK.
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And one of the part of their curriculum for the second semester,
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which would have been 2020, which we all know what happened in 2020, right?
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All the craziness.
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They had to read this book called The fallacy Detective.
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Yep.
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And I was leading the class with them.
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And so we went through and it introduces every week.
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They learned like one or two new fallacies.
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And then they just had fun with it.
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Well, what was so interesting was watching these kids
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even just get an introduction to critical thinking.
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And it was my introduction to I hadn't learned this.
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I never, I didn't know what logical fallacies were.
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I had no idea.
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It was all new to me.
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Well, watching these, what are they?
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12, 13 years old, however, they are in seventh grade.
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They picked up on, they learned them so quickly.
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And what was amazing is watching them navigate that period of time
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in our country, as compared with their peers.
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So watching a presidential debate or any kind of political debate
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with a kid who has learned some logical fallacies is such a different ballgame.
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They were able to pick about like that totally like because at that age,
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you know, when a kid is in middle school, all they want,
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it seems like as the brand, all they want to do is argue.
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Right.
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If you say, oh, it's, it's noon.
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What are they going to say?
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No, it's not.
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It's 1158 totally totally is made worse.
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Actually, no, it's 12 o'clock.
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Yeah.
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Exactly.
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Exactly.
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So all they want to do is argue, but it's because that's what they're,
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that's where their brain development is.
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They are at this place where their brain is developing.
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They're wanting to think and they're wanting to,
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their brain is wanting to make sense of the world around them.
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And it comes out is arguing.
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And we as parents, we get annoyed and we're like, don't argue with me.
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Don't talk back to me, right?
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No, if we can change our perspective on that and say, okay,
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they are wanting, they're looking for right.
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They're looking to make sense of the world around them.
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They are looking for what's true and how to make sense of what they're seeing.
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And if we can, if we can take, take it and look at it a little bit differently
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and not be offended that they're arguing with us.
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Okay, they have this natural inclination toward arguing and
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rightness and justice.
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Okay, let's take that and train that and let's teach them how to,
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quote unquote, argue and debate, but how to do it well and how to do it rightly.
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And so watching these kids, I had this, I had this side, I thought, oh my goodness.
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If our whole country just had this ability to think, right?
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To think about what they're seeing and ask the question, is that true?
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Are they telling me the truth?
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Could there, is there anything else that's been going on?
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Am I being manipulated here?
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Right.
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If you could just do that, our country would be in a very different place than where we're at right now.
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And I thought this and watching these kids, how much like they loved it, it was fun for them.
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Yeah, and this was one of the, their favorite parts of the day was having fun and they loved to go home
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and catch their parents committing a logical fantasy.
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They loved it.
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You know, let's catch these adults saying stuff that doesn't make sense or that's not true.
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And so that's what gave me the heart like this can be easy and this can be fun.
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Let's give it to these kids because once they have it, they will always have it.
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Once they have the skill to recognize good thinking, bad thinking, logical fallacies, they will always have it.
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And if we can teach them and encourage them to ask questions, now we don't have to be afraid of them
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hearing crazy stuff because they'll be like, that's crazy.
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Right.
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I love it.
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Totally.
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It's so true.
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And you have to be prepared that once your kids learn this, they're going to start calling you out
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because there was one day where I was saying something in my son's like, Mom, that's a red hairing.
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Yes.
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And I'm like, okay, well, you passed the class, but you were going to, right?
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And we just, they just need to be with the thing that I always tell parents when we get to this part is, okay,
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listen, they're going to, they're going to call you out.
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Yeah.
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And you need to be able to let them do that.
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Yeah.
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It's okay.
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Totally.
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But they have to be respectful.
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Yes.
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I love that.
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I just love this because when my kids were little, we always played a game called Spat the lie.
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And it started with, you know, we get a really cool book and it would be like millions of years ago.
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And we would just start to teach our kids, you know, Spat the lie.
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Spat the lie in the TV show, Spat the lie in the book.
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And we were never a family that's like, you cannot, you know, nothing comes into her house.
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It hasn't been, isn't absolutely truth because we wanted to teach them, you know,
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we can watch this as long as you can spot the lie.
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And then as they got older, the Spat the lie game, I'm like, okay, we need to take this farther.
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And I feel like your, your podcast, your what you do really helped me take it to the next level,
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the junior high, the high school level of, it's essentially Spat the lie.
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But now what we're doing is why is it a lie and where is the truth and how, how do we spot the lie?
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So it was awesome.
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And we started what's really cool is we started with the fallacy detective.
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And I really liked it.
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But I felt like, okay, we need more.
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And I didn't really care that my kids memorized, this is just me personally,
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memorized the terminology.
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And you might correct me on that.
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And that's okay.
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But to me, it was just more, can you spot the lie and that sort of thing.
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But then what I did, and I'm just sharing this with families, is we would listen to,
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this was a little bit of work for me.
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But I would go all the way back to the beginning of your podcast.
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And you would have, say, the red herring.
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And so we would listen to it.
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And then they would go to the fallacy detective and they'd read it the next day.
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So we got a couple days of that one was audio, one was reading.
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But then you dove in so much deeper.
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And I mean, I'm just going to share a little bit how we use it.
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We started that way with my older kids.
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And now this year, it's just going to be part of our morning basket
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that we are our circle time or whatever families want to call it,
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where we listen to one episode together a day during that time.
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And then we can discuss it or not depending on.
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And it's just been such a, I feel like you did the hard work
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to help me launch into teaching my kids this, this skill.
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And what I'm learning is I kind of already did teach them a skill.
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Like you were saying during COVID, what I kept telling my kids is,
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let's use our five senses.
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Like instead of the news, instead of what we're reading,
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like what do your five senses tell you in your everyday experience?
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How many people, and I'm not trying to go into COVID too much.
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But this is just an example of how we taught our kids this.
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How many people do you know who actually died of COVID?
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How many people do you actually know?
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Like what are you seeing with your eyes?
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What are you actually experiencing when this is happening?
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Or even if everybody is a terrible person,
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I'm hearing that on the news all the time.
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But then when you go out to the grocery store,
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what are you actually experiencing?
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Are people really, really mean sometimes?
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But really to teach our kids that, but I'm just this logic curriculum.
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And would you call what you're doing as a curriculum?
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Okay, so a couple things.
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Summer one, I love hearing how you're using it.
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This is, it, it, like you are making my day so much
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because this is exactly why I created this podcast.
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It was for, so parents could do exactly this,
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or even hit play when you're running to soccer practice.
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Right. You know what I mean?
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Yep. So, and I wanted to tell you,
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I have a matchup that I have created between fallacy detective
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and my podcast.
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Oh, that would have been nice to know.
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It's free.
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It's a download filter through brainsell.com forward slash A.
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And there's a little form you fill out and you can immediately
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download it.
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So that is very, because there's a lot of families
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that use it in conjunction with that book.
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And so I just, I made that up.
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I love that.
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So that's available.
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So I created it so that it could be a curriculum.
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Okay.
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Absolutely.
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Because I wanted something to be very easy for parents.
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Because it's intimidating.
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Yeah.
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A lot of, a lot of homeschool parents,
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they're intimidated by logic.
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Right.
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Because we didn't get that in school.
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Right.
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Like this was not a subject that I got in school.
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Most of us didn't.
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We don't know these weird names.
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Like ad hominem attacks.
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Right.
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What is this?
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Like I don't even know what these words mean.
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So it was very intimidating.
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So I thought if I can make this really easy,
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and not only easy, but fun.
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Yep.
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Oh my goodness.
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That's a win-win.
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And I don't know.
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I just love talking about it.
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I love teaching it.
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I think it's something that really makes a difference.
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It's so cool.
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And for me, what I realized with it is as I'm teaching these things to my kids,
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one, what you've done is you've given me a launching off spot, right?
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Because they're short and they're sweet.
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But we know that with homeschool,
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what the most important thing, more than curriculum,
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more than academics, more than anything is relationship with our kids.
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Yes.
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And so what it is allowed me to do is build relationship
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through having the conversations that not that I would avoid or not know how to have,
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but that I wouldn't think to have, right?
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That I wouldn't really think because it just hasn't come up.
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And so it's really, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's,
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it's teaching kids logic.
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And we're going to take a quick break in just a second.
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But and really talk about why, like really why doing.
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And we have a little bit, but um, teaching logic and, and by listening,
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and then doing it has really built some incredible relationships with us,
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being able to talk about it.
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And then what you do is you have these joint experiences because we've learned it together.
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Then we can, we can spot the lie out in the, in the real world together.
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And it kind of brings us together.
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I've just loved how it's really bonded us in a lot of ways to learn this stuff.
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Yes. I love that because now if you're driving down the road and you look at a billboard,
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you can point at it at your kids and say, what do you think about that?
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Right.
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Tell me, tell me what you see there or a bumper sticker in front of you or,
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you know, movies as you're watching movies with kids.
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Okay.
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What do you think about what that person just said?
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Totally.
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And because you have learned and they have learned you have common language.
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I love it.
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And now you can talk about it and you can have this conversation
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in both of you are learning at the same time.
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And they're getting real world application for these things that they're learning,
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which to me, that's what it all boils down to.
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I don't care if some kid memorizes like, like you said, no, I don't care if you remember the names
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of them or not a lot of times.
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I don't even remember the names of them.
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There's over 300 logical fallacies.
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It's a lot to remember.
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But if you can recognize, I love this spot the lie.
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If you can recognize the bad thinking when you see it, that is everything right there.
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Absolutely.
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Absolutely.
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Okay.
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I am super excited about this conversation.
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We need to take a quick break and then we'll be back and we're going to continue
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to talk about logic and why it's important to teach our kids.
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We'll be right back.
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which keeps families organized with easy lesson planning, calendars, and even grading tools.
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To learn more, visit BJUPressHomeschool.com.
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OK, we are back with Kathy.
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And we were just talking about just kind of what she's done with her podcast,
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but really the importance of teaching logic to our kids.
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It doesn't just happen.
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They aren't just born with logic.
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I mean, I would actually say in a sense they are,
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but the world really shoves it out of them.
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So you were talking about when you got started in really your deep dive into logic
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and the importance of teaching it to kids.
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It came from in that COVID era.
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But you noticed the way that those kids in that class were dealing with things or looking
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viewing things versus other kids that aren't really taught to think and question and ask.
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And that leads me to what I love and I tell my kids what's really cool about being followers of
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Jesus Christ, you know, having our lives rooted in God's word is it's one of the only religions,
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only it's not a religion, it's truth, it's relationship.
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But we don't have to be afraid to ask questions like Jesus that,
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you know, not seek ask.
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We can ask questions.
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It's not scary because God knows it'll always point back to truth.
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Now there are two kinds of asking.
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I always tell my kids, you know, one is the asking of, you know,
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when when Mary found out she was pregnant and was it Zachariah?
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Or no, Zachariah found out Elizabeth was pregnant and didn't didn't really believe it was an
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asking that was a disbelief asking, right?
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Like I don't really believe this and that didn't go so well.
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But then when Mary asked, you know, I remember she, one of the first things she said is,
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God, how are you going to do this?
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And she asked not like, there's no way you can do this.
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But she asked with a heart that said, I know you can because you're God,
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because there's truth, because there's reality.
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I can't wait to see how you're going to do that, right?
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How you're going to do this miracle that you've said will happen.
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Because we know that God's word always points back to truth.
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So we don't have to be afraid of asking.
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And I think too many parents are nervous to tell their kids question everything,
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ask questions.
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You know, there's that whole question.
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Everything. You're afraid to tell your kids that because you're like,
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they're going to start questioning me.
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But what you're saying, and I'd like you to kind of expound on this,
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is teaching kids to ask questions will actually in the end bring them back to truth and give them
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a more solid truth and understanding and knowledge of who God is and the reality and truth of who
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he is. Yes. Okay. I've got two things I want to say about this.
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And oh, you've articulated it so, so well.
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I'll never forget it was a couple years ago.
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I was really challenged by somebody who said that for it to be a good conversation,
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you have to come to the conversation, willing to be convinced.
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And I thought, I don't know about that.
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This was somebody that I respected.
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So it made me think about it because I thought there are some things I'm not willing to be convinced
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about. There are some things that I believe to be true that I'm not willing to be convinced about.
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And then what I realized is when you understand what the whole point is, what is the goal of having
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a conversation, you don't have to be afraid of it. So here's the little
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diagram, the little imagery that I like to do. And I'm for those of you who are just listening
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audio, I'm just got my two pointer fingers pressing kind of back and forth at each other.
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So when you come to something and you're willing to be convinced, okay, maybe it's something that's
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very deeply held. Like there's some things about my faith that I hold deeply that I'm probably not
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going to change. Right. But if I were to come and talk to somebody of a different faith or somebody
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of no faith at all, if I'm willing to be convinced and to push back and forth,
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if the whole goal of a conversation is to buckle toward truth,
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now I don't have to be afraid. So when you realize that when you're getting in there and you're
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wrestling with things and you're willing to take, okay, this is what I believe, let me put it
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on the table and let's wrestle with it. Let's go back and forth. If the goal is to buckle toward
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truth, we don't have to be afraid because the thing that we believe is true, we will wind up
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back there again. Absolutely. Just like science always points back to truth. It's just evidence of
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God's truth and reality. I love that. Yes. And so this is why we can put anything on the table
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and we can wrestle with it because the goal is always to find truth. And think about people
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are so afraid. But what if you did, because they think what if I discovered that the thing that
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I believe isn't true? Well, wouldn't you want to know that? Yeah, totally. Don't we want to know,
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we don't have to be afraid of that now because, okay, there are probably, I mean, if we think in our
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life over the course of your life, has there been anything that you've changed your mind on?
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Has there been anything that you learned something new and said, oh, okay, maybe I think about this
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differently now or maybe I believe different. Hopefully so. Right. There's none of us has the corner
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market on all truth of everything in every ever in the world. Right. We don't. I don't think
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that's anything to be proud of when something is like, oh, I've never had to change my mind about
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something. Oh, that's really sad. I mean, do you haven't learned anything? Right. So we should
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always be learning. We should always be growing. We should always be willing to look at things
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with the goal of buckling toward truth and changing our mind. If we discover, hey, maybe I didn't
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have that quite right or I've learned some new things with this. Right. Now, the reason that this
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is so important is because of what our kids are going to see in society and what they're going to
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hear. We are living in a postmodern world where what we're being told is there is no truth. Right.
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There's your truth. Yep. And my truth or true. In her truth. Yep. And it's based on what you feel
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on what you think to be right. What your gut feeling is. Like what does that even mean? Right. And it
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could change. And it probably will change. It could be one truth in the morning and a different
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truth that night. Yep. This is what kids are being told. And so and it's all being packaged in
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this skin of emotionalism. Yeah. So it's all based around, okay, how can I get you emotional? How
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it's an appeal to emotion is going to be the logical fallacy. But how can I get you to do
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think or believe something just because I can make you feel something. If I can make you feel
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guilty. Oh, I can pity anger fear. If I can get you to feel any of those things, it's like we're
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led like a those big bulls that have a ring in their nose and you can just lead and wherever you
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want to go. Yep. If you don't realize you have to be asking, well, what's the actual truth behind
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this? Because they're going to see these memes. They're going to see comments. They're going to see
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arguments from people. And there's a little bit of truth in it. Yep. With a whole lot of lie.
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And it's sold on a platter of emotions. Yep. And how dare you not be on board with this?
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Shame, shame, shame. If you're not. And we have to have kids who can look at that and say, okay,
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well, let's see what they're saying. Okay, so this is what they're saying. This is the argument.
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Right. Is that actually true? What's the world view behind it? Is there any errors in the thinking?
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And we want them to wrestle with it and to think about it and to push back and forth and to come
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to truth to always buckle up toward truth. So that's one of the reasons that I think it's so
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incredibly important to develop this skill. Right. Everybody, you know, we're born with the ability
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to think well, but we do need to have that trained. We do need to be taught. And so this is just
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something that we can do. And my whole goal is for parents to know that it can be fun. It can be
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easy. It doesn't have to be hard. Right. We can do this. And I say we must do this with our kids.
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This is critical to them being able to withstand anything that they're going to hear in the world.
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If they have this, because think about it, you can either think, okay, I have to teach my kid
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every right thing. There is to know about anything ever in the world. Right. Who can do that?
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You can't. We can't. That's not even possible. But if you can teach them to learn and teach
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them to think for themselves to seek truth, now you don't have to worry. They can do it for
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themselves. And that is an incredible skill to have in today's world. Absolutely. And so to
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some like, this is not a school subject. I see too many schools are going to do logic.
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You know, well, public school doesn't do logic. I don't think. But even in the private, and it's like,
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this is not a class. This is not a subject. This is a life skill. This is a, I would have to say,
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life or death skill, right? Because like you said, you know, there's it's one little lie wrapped
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up in a whole bunch of truths. And we go back to what God's word says. And that's the, that's the
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sheep or the wolf in sheep's clothing, right? He's not going to come in like a raging wolf,
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because you'd spotted a mile away. It's going to be wrapped up in something that probably feels good
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or makes sense on the surface. And so we have to, and I will be what you said, we have to
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teach our kids to ask good questions to think deeply to kind of like strip back the layers.
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And like you said, where is this person coming from? What is their angle? What are they?
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What is their goal? What are they trying to get me to believe? Does that make sense? And, and,
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you know, there's a lot of fear right now, like this fear of I don't want to offend someone. And
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because someone else say, Oh, well, that's so unloving of you. And for some reason, that just makes
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everybody, it makes Christians especially feel like, you know, God is love. And I'm called
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to love God, love others. And if you're telling me this is unloving, then clearly I need to,
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to alter, you know, and pivot and do something different. But what I've, I've learned a lot from you
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and just, and doing this is we have to ask questions about words. And I want you to kind of share
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a little bit about that to, to kind of close out this episode. But one thing I've learned is,
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well, what is love? Right? What is what are these words that you're trying to say? Because
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your version of love and the and life's version of love, like, is very different. So can you kind of
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take us down that road is to, to, we first of all, we can't be afraid, right? This whole,
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you're offending me. Like, this is what shuts people down and causes us to not think and ask
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questions. And then manipulation of words, people manipulate words to make us feel like we can't
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ask questions. So can you take that and run with that a little bit? Yep. That's fantastic. So
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and this is why one of the first fallacies, it, well, one of the top 10, anyways, that I love
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teaching kids, because they will always get it is, it's called equivocation. So equivocation
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happens when somebody changes the meaning of a word in order to try to make their point point,
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or in order to try to make you feel some kind of way. So in the example that you gave, we have to
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go back to loving. Okay, what is the definition of loving? What and what are they meaning it to say?
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Right. So loving is as we're taught, scripturally, is behaving properly toward another person.
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Yeah. With their best interest in mind, with that person's interest and truth in mind.
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Truth is that, Wurley, because who created love, that's the other thing is like, where did you
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create it? Who created love? Right. God is right. God is love. It is. Yeah. So and now what do they
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mean when they say loving? They mean total acceptance and not just acceptance, acceptance, but
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edification of whatever it is that they're saying that they want to do or should be able to do.
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Yeah. Those are two different things. Totally. So if we can teach our kids equivocation,
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yeah. Okay. Well, what do they mean by this? Another one is June is Pride Month. So you'll have
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T-shirt with a rainbow on it and says God's love is all inclusive. Okay.
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Well, if you show this to a middle schooler who has been taught the fallacy of equivocation and say,
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what what do they mean by the words there? Look at the words. Right. Okay. All inclusive. So all
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inclusive could mean God loves everybody. Right. Who does? Yes. This is true. Yeah. God does. Yes. But
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is that what they mean? Right. Know what they're saying is because God loves everybody. His love is
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all inclusive. Therefore, he endorses the things that everybody is doing. Right. Right. And that's
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a very different thing. But if they're not able to think through the differences there, if they're
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not even able to recognize, okay, they've changed the meaning of this word, then you fall for it.
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Right. And you think, oh, yeah, that's true. God does love everybody. So so people are tricky with
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words. Yes. And that's a big one that we have to watch out for. And a great way to teach this
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is puns. Almost every pun that's out there comes from equivocation. Somebody changes the
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meaning of a word in the argument. So this is a really great way to teach your kids about
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equivocation. Give us an example of that. It would be, I don't know yet, I can't think of the,
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there's a Calvin and Hobbes cartoon that I like. And it talks about their a peck. Right. And
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the one uses it as an example of, you know, we picked a peck of apples. Okay. And the other one
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talks about a kiss on the cheek. Gotcha. Gotcha. So you can find little things like that.
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Right. Just a cute little pun and show it to your kid. And now you can have a conversation
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about changing the meaning of words. And okay, it's cute and funny as a joke. Right. But what if
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it happens in this way? Right. And they got it. Like these kids, they get it. I love it. And kids do,
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that's what I found really interesting is I think maybe it was harder for us to wrap our head
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around because I mean, many of us, because we were indoctrinated in the system, you know, but we have,
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we have a clean slate when we homeschool. And one thing that I'm hearing you say too is,
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one thing that we have to teach our kids in this, in this art of arguing, I would say is,
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they need to listen because if you just come out of the gate, ready to tell that person, they're wrong.
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They do you have to be able to listen to go where are they coming from? And I quite frankly have
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found that you can circle someone back to truth without ever like having to be a bull in a
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China closet and make your point by just asking good questions. If you can ask them really good
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questions, they're going to get themselves back to truth. And then it will probably stick a little
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more because rather than me just going, you're wrong. You know what I mean? Like your wrong. Love is
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not love. You know, you're wrong about this. People aren't going to hear that. But if I ask questions
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and say, Hey, what do you mean by love? Like, where what do you mean by this? And you ask
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enough questions. And I think the word that really comes to me and all of this is humility, right?
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If my number one goal is to prove that I'm right, then that's a very different angle I'm going to
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take. Then if my number one goal is to lead someone to truth, right? And walk away from a conversation
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where someone is now walking in truth because good questions were asked rather than walking away
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from a conversation where I'm right, you're wrong. And now there's all this division and drama.
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And I think again, that's what we saw in 2020 because everybody was just so so angry. And when we can
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ask good questions and we can teach our kids that questions aren't scary and that we can ask
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questions with a heart of love. Like my goal is to love you well. So I don't want you to believe a
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lie that's going to harm you and damage you. Then we can open up these conversations and have
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logical conversations once again amongst people. So I am so sad to say that this week we have to
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close out, but we have so much more where this is coming from because I think I know that teaching
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logic is crucial. It's not optional. If we want our kids to be able to sit at the feet of Jesus
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and walk in his word and stand against a world and an enemy and their flesh that wants them to
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believe lies, we have to teach them. I mean, that is our role. That's our job as parents. I would
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I would dare say before math, before Shakespeare teaching our kids to think well and how to think
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is what is going to produce fruit in their life. It's what going to save them from a lot of really
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hard things. And at the end of the day, it will bring other people to truth because of it. So
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Kathy Gibbons, I am so thankful that you have listened to the Lord's call in your life and that you
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are helping to equip parents to teach their kids so that maybe we have a generation of logical
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thinking once again. And before we close out, can you tell people where they can find you? I think
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I pretty much plugged where everybody can find you, but can you share once again where we can find you
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so we can be encouraged by the work you're doing? Absolutely. So the podcast is available on any
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podcast player. It's just called filter it through a brain cell and you can download it, listen to it.
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Season one is all about logical fallacies. Season two is all about cognitive biases.
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And then my website is filter it through braincell.com. And if you go to
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slash a, you can get the download, the matchup between the fallacy detective that we talked about.
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And if you go to filter it through braincell.com, forward slash quiz, I have a free quiz. It's got
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10 different memes. I love teaching through memes and things that we see in real life because I feel
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like this is where the rubber meets the road totally. And so I have 10 memes on there. You can take it,
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you can have your middle schoolers take it and see if you can name the fallacy that's happening
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in each meme. I love it. I'm on Instagram, filter it through brain cell, Facebook. It's just
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under Kathy Gibbons on Facebook. I love it. Filter it through a brain cell. That's what we need to do
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with every single thing. And through God's word. And I know that you would agree with that. We're
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we will be back here next week where we're going to dive into a little bit more just deeper things
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about logic and what happens if we don't and and all those things. And then I want to hit next
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week a little bit on homeschooling a single child because that I know that we have an audience that
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is going to love and be encouraged about that. So come back here next week again. Everything that
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you need is at schoolhouserock.com. The film. I mean, there is you would not believe the resources
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that are there. And all of the past podcast episodes, what's really cool is you can type in
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to where in the podcast page any guest, any host, any topic, and it will bring up every podcast
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that's been done on that. We make it really easy for you to find things. You can find me at
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Abby Rinala called to the top on any social media and anywhere. So we'd love to hear from you.
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And we will be back next week.
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You're listening to the Biblical Family Network. Hey, I'm Mickey. And I'm Will. And we're the
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cohost of the Culture Proof Podcast. We want to invite you to join us every week as we discuss
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what's happening in the world and then filter those happenings through a decidedly Biblical lens.
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There are many questions, especially when we see what's happening in our culture today. But the
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answers are found within the word of God. So that's where we want to look. Hey, man, when we resist
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those cultural trends that rival the truth, we remain culture proof. There's no shortage of people out
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there who are really excited to tell you their bad ideas. Yes. There is no stability. Like James
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tells us unstable in all his ways. Well, what are we seeing a massive explosion of is mental instability.
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People that do not have a solid foundation of truth, you're open to anything. We're told to take
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every thought captive. Right. God actually says a lot about our thinking and it's not passive.
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How can we train our kids to love the truth? Well, it starts with there is truth. All truth is
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God's truth. And if we can point them back to that, then we can teach him, okay, we're going to
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love truth. So when you love truth, what does that mean? What do you do when you love something?
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You protect it. You honor it. You esteem it. You value it.