S10|12 - Raising Critical Thinkers with Julie Bogart

p> 

 

It takes less than a minute on social media to notice that there is a skill that is lacking in our world: critical thinking. It’s not what you might think… sitting in a stuffy classroom, reading texts, thinking about them and deciding what’s right or wrong. Critical thinking is MUCH deeper than that, and MUCH more important in our world today. If there is one skill you want to teach your teens today- this is it. 

Join Julie Bogart and me on the podcast this week for a fascinating conversation on what critical thinking is, and what it is not. Julie is known for her commonsense writing, critical thinking and home education advice. Her podcast and social media are wildly popular sources of support to weary, well-intentioned parents. Julie home educated her five children who are now globe-trotting adults. Today, Julie lives in Cincinnati, Ohio.

What we delve into today: 

• Helping support writers in your home to love writing, and learn to express themselves in powerful ways 
• What critical thinking is, and how it deepens self-awareness 
• Sitting in the discomfort of opinions that are different than yours to increase your own growth 
• How to foster critical thinking in your kids 

Connect with Julie! 
Books HERE
On IG HERE
On FB HERE
BRAVE WRITER links HERE
Podcast HERE

---

Connect with Crystal:

Intuitive Journaling Prompts HERE and a somatic meditation (Move through frustration in 15 minutes or less) HERE, The Art of Non-Attachment Workshop HERE

Get started on this work with daily practice in a journal, Burn This Book (a great intro to mental and emotional wellness) HERE

Work with Crystal 1:1: www.coachcrystal.ca/miracle or in group: www.coachcrystal.ca/creationroom

Grab your copy of Crystal’s feelings wheel here: www.coachcrystal.ca/wheel

Find your parenting personality (and get tips specific to it) by taking the quiz 

HERE

 

Full Transcript

This transcript has been created to provide a text-based version of the podcast episode for accessibility and convenience. While effort has been made to ensure its accuracy, it may contain errors or omissions. Please note that the exact words and intended meaning of the speaker(s) are best understood by listening to the original audio recording.

To experience the full conversation in its authentic form, please listen to the episode directly on your preferred podcast platform.

 

Introduction

Crystal: [00:00:00] Welcome to the Parenting Coach Podcast with Crystal. Over seven years ago, I felt like I was stuck in this cycle of yelling and reactivity in my parenting that I did not want to be in, but I didn't know how to get out of, I knew how I wanted to parent pretty much exactly, and I'd spent hours reading books, but not finding a way to show up how I wanted to.

That's when I started to turn inwards. My own inward journey was what my family needed. As I changed everything around me, changed my kids' meltdowns, decreased by 90% or more with no medications or therapy. I stopped yelling. Sibling fighting became almost entirely nonexistent, and I found that this change flowed into other areas of my life too.

My intuition increased. I started to run my life in business in a very different way. If this sounds like something you want, Sue, I can help. Join me each week as I share my journey, including the laughter, fun, hard times, and tears. Tune in for support, guidance, and fun conversations. With my favorite experts and really anything else that interests me too.

Introduction: Meet Julie Bogart

Hello everybody. Welcome to the podcast. I hope you've been enjoying these [00:01:00] guest interviews. I definitely have. Um, they've been really awesome and, um, really great way to kind of wrap up the end of season 10 and the end of this podcast. If you missed my, um, recent announcement, the, this is gonna be the end of this podcast.

I do have something new coming, but, um, because parenting isn't the thing that I. Solely focus on anymore. I'm feeling, um, excited about starting something new. So today we have, um, a guest who has been on before, but we are gonna be talking about something different today that's pretty awesome and exciting.

So first of all, um, welcome Julie to the podcast. Welcome back. Thank you for coming again. Thanks for having

Julie: me. Crystals good to be with you.

Crystal: Um, so for those of you that didn't listen to her, um, episode last season, I think it was season nine, where we talk about education, go back and listen to that one.

Um, and also you can hear me on her podcast. Yeah. Um, where we talk all about shame. So that one's great as well. But do you wanna just introduce yourself for people that maybe haven't heard of you yet?

Julie: Sure. Um, I'm Julie Bogart. I started a company called Brave Writer [00:02:00] 25 years ago now. Uh, and it teaches writing and language arts to homeschooling family.

What makes it distinctive is I'm a professional author and editor and magazine writer, and so I brought sort of the sensibility of a professional writer to writing instruction. So instead of format focus, we're really focused on self-expression and identifying. Our own insight generation, vocabulary way of self expressing.

Why Critical Thinking Matters

Uh, and that's really resonated with students and parents and creates sort of lifelong learners and lifelong writers. Um, and it also fosters critical thinking, which is in my view, the capacity to have self-awareness. While you are thinking about ideas and thoughts and issues of the day or history. So for me, they all kind of tie together.

I have five adult kids, I homeschooled them for 17 years and um, yeah, I live in Cincinnati, Ohio and have three grandchildren and one on the way.

Crystal: That is awesome. I love, um, [00:03:00] yeah, I, I love the way that you teach writing and I think it really does, um, breed writers. Writers like, and that original thought, that creative thought.

Um, in fact, um, just last week, my 11-year-old was just like, I don't wanna write anymore. Like, he just felt like writing was boring. And I was like, wait, what? That's unusual for him. So I mean, this kid wrote like a 30,000 word novel recently. Love that. So I was like, why does he not like writing anyway? So I was like, you know what?

It's probably the way we've been doing it lately. We probably need to add some more like joy and fun and creativity. So I thought about your ideas and whatnot, and I was like, oh, we should, we're gonna do some fun activities. Anyways, I woke up this morning with all these like fun activities and I said, okay, I really have some like fun writing games we're gonna do today.

And he said, oh no, I don't have time. I have this new idea and I'm gonna be writing all day. I was like, oh, okay. Alright, nevermind. He's been downstairs ever since for hours writing his story video game idea. Well,

Julie: that's part of the process, isn't it? We sometimes I, one of the [00:04:00] most common experiences parents have is a child who finally likes writing and they finally produce something they really love, and then the parent, you know, so it's Friday, and then on Monday the parent is like, let's do another writing project.

And the child is still like, basking in the glow of having written. And if I think about like all the professional authors I know like after you've written a book, the first thing you don't wanna do is start a new one. Yeah. Like, you actually wanna take some time enjoying the success and the feeling of having committed these ideas to the page to just sort of relish that experience.

So I really love that you discovered that kind of, uh, directly, you know, just by letting him. Sort of regenerate. And you also, you have to go back out in the world and be re stimulated and have your imagination catalyzed again. That's all part of the writing journey too,

Crystal: and that's totally what happened to him this time.

'cause he has this new idea and this story and this video game that he wants to create in his mind. And he's like, but I don't have the skills to create a video game yet. And so I was like, well, you could create the video game just through a story for now [00:05:00] until you Oh, I love that. I love that. And he like, oh yeah.

Encouraging Independent Thought in Kids

So now he's been drawing and writing and, and what I love about the way you teach it is that it really does stimulate original thought and creativity in a way that with my older kids, until I found this method, um, they really didn't. It was very much just like, here's how to write, you know, penmanship and like boring, like grammar activities.

And lo and behold, they didn't like writing. And now as teenagers as we've been like, you know, doing it in a different way. Um, both my teenagers are really interested in writing, so I think that love that. For those of you that are listening and are like, my kids hate writing, there is a way to love it.

Just go find Julie and her podcast and her curriculum and her books and her ideas and, um, there is a way to teach it where you really do inspire that. Creativity and that writer within, because I think we're all writers. I think we all have something to say,

Julie: well, we are, because self-expression is writing the, the self-expression is just looking for a transcriptionist.

So whether it's a secretary writing it down, or voice to text or your own [00:06:00] fingers. Self-expression is the content of writing. We act like writing is some group of words that we hunt and pack in the air force. No, they live inside. They're the same ones we used to speak. And then we do go back and we sometimes reshape those words the same way that we would in oral speech.

You know, the way I talk to my friend is different than if I were to meet the president of the United States, or if I were to talk at a professional board meeting like. We modify our self presentation orally all the time to suit a certain container, right? A certain expression, but the same source.

Inhabit each of those and writing is very similar. So anyway, yes, I have a book, help My kid hates writing. Yeah, that's coming out in April and it really is for those hardest cases. But even if you have kids who like writing, you'll find a lot of help because it's teaching you how to be that coach and ally to your child, because that's what we all need.

We don't need an evaluator, we don't need a grader. We need someone who knows how to coax the best ideas [00:07:00] and thoughts and words out of us and to support that expression.

Crystal: Oh, I love that. I'm excited for that one too. Okay, so today we're actually talking about a book that is already out. Yes. Raising Critical Thinkers.

And, um, I was just telling Julie before we pressed record, I got this book maybe not even a month ago, and I thought, oh, just read it quick. I'll write down some questions I have for her. Anyways, um, if you could see this book, it's like earmarked and lined all the way through and, um, I could not read it fast.

I finished reading it last night. Oh wow. For our interview this morning, and I kept rereading sections and sharing it with my husband and going to my kids and being like, listen to this part. I sent a text to my son who's at college and was like, this is the conversation we've been having in university is his like, um, lack of feeling like the depth of education.

Oh, wow. Like feeling like it's very much just like checking off boxes and he doesn't get the opportunity to really think deeply that he wants. To, and I was like, I read one of your sections after we had a conversation and I texted to him and I'm like, this, this is what we were [00:08:00] just saying. So I'm excited to dive into all of this and as you kind of just said, raising you think critical thinking is like the number one skill or at least upset in the skills that we need to learn to teach our kids.

And also probably what's kind of missing sometimes, at least it seems to be when we read things on social media. Um, so tell us a little bit about that.

Julie: Yeah. What's interesting is the working title for the book was Raising Self-Aware Thinkers, and it was my publisher who asked me to change it to Critical Thinkers because first marketing, she just thinks more people have a idea of what critical thinking is.

Mm-hmm. But also then as she was reading the book, as I was developing it, she thought that this was actually a re-imagining of how people understand critical thinking. And I, mm-hmm. I really grew to agree with her, the more that I spent time actually working on the content of the book. Critical thinking for most of us when we just think about quickly is I'm really good at criticizing that idea, right?

If somebody else has an idea and I'm super good at seeing all of its holes, [00:09:00] right? Yeah. Like I can just doubt the veracity of that idea. Yes. And I can go in and show you the holes in your thinking. Yeah. So it's really other focused it, and what that means is we're investing a lot of trust and faith in our own thinking.

We're saying, well, the way I see the world is actually coherent and logical, and the way that person sees it isn't, and I'm gonna point out how much they're wrong. That's social media, that's most families, that's most interactions that we have. But truly critical thinking, the kind that happens like in graduate level work or happens in academic context, is the capacity to be self-examining.

It's to actually turn the, what I call doing an academic selfie. It's turning the camera lens around on your own thinking and identifying your bias as it kicks into gear. Noticing your sort of physiological reactions. I tell this one story of when I was in college, I was writing a paper and I had a thesis 'cause they make you do thesis based writing.

I was a history major and I started doing [00:10:00] research. I was immediately sorting the research based on whether or not it supported my thesis. Like, well, this research over here doesn't, so I'll just ignore it. Mm-hmm. This research over here does, so I'll include it. And there was a certain moment where I actually ran into research that truly was devastating to my argument.

Like, oh, this is a whole bunch of ideas that make my assertion pretty flimsy, but the paper was due.

Crystal: So

Julie: I made this judgment to ignore this critique, this evidence that I should have accounted for, that I should have included, that should have modified my thesis because of a time deadline. And I, I did what we all do.

I excluded what was uncomfortable and I only included what made an argument. That made sense to me. Mm-hmm. And literally that's what we all do. It's a reflexive habit. Yeah. But it stayed with me. It disturbed me for most of my young adult life [00:11:00] because I knew I had done that and I started to get very interested in, well, if I'm doing that.

I bet other people do that too.

Crystal: Uh, when I read that story, I was like thinking back on university years, and I could think of very specific, like 15 page papers I was asked to produce in psychology where I would be looking at all of this research and I would only pick the research that backed up what my opinion already was.

Exactly. I would ignore any other research and I didn't even talk about those in my papers. I just talked about like, no, no, no. This is, this is what it is. And I was like, oh, yes. Like we're, we definitely do

Julie: that, and the problem with it is kind of what you said about talking with your son about college. If the goal is to get a grade to maintain a GPA to keep a scholarship

Crystal: mm-hmm.

Julie: Then it's actually very logical for a student to simply produce papers that will achieve that goal. They've actually learned the system, they've learned what school is teaching them, which is how to [00:12:00] marshal their understanding for the outcome that makes their life easier and better. But that's not critical thinking.

Critical thinking is going in without a thesis, like the first essay we teach in Brave Writer is the Exploratory essay, because I don't want students to take a position. I want them to start with not having a position and finding out, well, what are all of the sort of heroes of this space? Saying and how do they relate to each other?

You know, this person is making this assertion, you know, you were in psychology, so is it nature or nurture? Mm-hmm. Looking at all the different people in that field who've commented on those two ideas, how can I have an opinion if I'm new? To this field, and I've never even met the major players through their own work, and yet we start asking third graders to write opinion papers.

I think that's a crime.

Crystal: Yeah. Which I remember not

Julie: be happening.

Crystal: I remember hearing the nature versus nurture argument in my first semester, and I remember [00:13:00] thinking, I think I even raised my hand well, which is right. All that. All I cared about was, okay, well, which one do you want us to know is the right one?

Check the box, like move on. Not like Exactly. It's actually this huge ongoing conversation that like hasn't ever really been answered and is probably both, and we just wanna know what's right, what's wrong, like just give me the, gimme the correct answer and I'll move on.

Julie: Exactly. I, I think part of what happens, um, especially right now in this very, uh, heated political environment is that people's identities are tied to the positions they hold.

It. It creates a membership in a community that they value. And one of the things that I explore in my book. Is the way that our identity obscures our ability to think critically. Mm-hmm. I know for me that one of the biggest challenges, like let's just take homeschooling since that's the world that I inhabit, it is very tempting to exclude the reports of homeschooled adult children who say that their [00:14:00] educations were inferior.

Yes. It's very hard to listen to that feedback because I'm over here championing the cause of homeschooling. Mm-hmm. And the first thing that I notice from homeschoolers when they see that information is they discount it in some way. They find a way to say it's either not accurate or it represents a small group, or schools have abuse in them as well.

They do all of the things. That project their identity as a homeschooler because it is so uncomfortable to say, I advocate for this thing that also causes damage. Mm-hmm. I see it as being positive, but there is a whole tranche of people who don't, and I have to inclu, expand to include their experiences in my self understanding.

I, I've asked myself as I've watched in the United States, the Department of Education get dismantled and to watch the way that, um, states. Are changing the curriculum, for instance, for schools to include religious content, et cetera. And I've had to ask myself, have [00:15:00] I been a part of the problem by having advocated mm-hmm.

For homeschooling for. Three decades? Is that part of how we got here? That's a really uncomfortable question because I just thought it was picking something that was great for my family. But every choice, every belief we have has greater impact than just what happens in four walls of your house. Mm-hmm.

And so part of what we're avoiding in critical thinking, in this absence of critical thinking, we're avoiding losing our membership in the communities that are meaningful to us. Undermining our own identities, destabilizing the certainties that help give shape to our lives. And so that's why you can only do it in tiny doses.

It's very difficult to do it for every belief that you have

Crystal: because it, it, there's so much friction there. As you were speaking, I was thinking about this book that I read, I don't remember how many years ago. I think it's called Educated by Tara West. Oh, yeah. She's based in Idaho. Yeah. Great book. So not as only is she in my religious community, she's also, uh, like homeschooled that community.

Right. Also [00:16:00] holistic, which I'm more into holli the holistic world. So it was very jarring to read it and have it be so opposite, like to see so much abuse happening from all three of those areas. Wow. Wow. And being like. This is, this is an uncomfortable perspective to read, but also seeing like her truth and having, having her share her story and seeing truthfulness to each of those areas.

And for me it was very eye-opening. I actually really loved the book, but, and other people who were immediately were like. It's all a lie. Her parents wrote this thing that's like opposite of it, just so you know, like she's only making money off of it. Anyways, it was interesting to see people just immediately go to that, like you were mentioning with homeschooling.

Let's, let's just pretend like we don't know that there's negatives to it also, instead of just like we were doing with my psychology papers back then. That's right. Ignore anything that's opposite and live in this echo chamber of only being friends with people that tell me that [00:17:00] my beliefs are right.

That's right.

Julie: Yeah, that's exactly right.

Crystal: So, um, let's dig into critical thinking then. Okay. What is your perspective of what, what you think critical thinking is, and also how people kind of get it wrong? What maybe what the majority of people kind of think critical thinking is and how your view of it differs.

Julie: Yeah, I think. I think for me, critical thinking foundationally starts with self-awareness. So it's the capacity to check your own bias when it's kicking into gear. So one of the ways that I talk about that is noticing your own tells. So if I'm scrolling on Facebook and some high school friend of mine that I haven't talked to in 30 years, post an article, let's say a link to an article.

I see that it is written by a person that is not from my group. It's from the other side. And I suddenly see that this person is attached to that article. I have like a flurry of reactions. My first one is smugness. That's a big tell for me. If I feel smug and superior, I'm not thinking [00:18:00] critically. I am identifying with my group.

Um, the second one is judgment. I'm looking at this person differently now. I used to like them now for some reason I don't. There's just like this, and then I start like wondering about their story, like what happened to them that they wound up here, which is a very judgmental way to frame all of that.

Mm-hmm. What I've had to learn how to do is when I feel smugness kick in, I immediately pause and I ask myself to go in and actually read the article or read their perspective, and I try to imagine the world through that lens. Like, well, what would it be for this person? Why are they attached to this?

What about this perspective brings order and coherence to the world they live in? Because even though I can choose to still disagree with it, every person internally has a coherent worldview. There isn't a person who doesn't, if you are behind their eyes, inside their brain, their [00:19:00] accumulated experiences, identity, education, socioeconomic position, religious background, or lack of all of those things create a sense of a story that feels secure and provides safety.

And if that's true for me, that's also true for you. So to me, the beginning of critical thinking is at least endowing the other person with coherence and logic. Mm-hmm. It's actually caring to understand how they fit the puzzle pieces together without me interjecting my version. And then it's the ability to do that same thing with me.

Well, how does my bias, how do my needs, my background, my ideologies? How do they, I. Create the person that I am. And one of the ways to break out of this temptation to always think that you have the most logical take, which most people think, um, is to actually do this thing that, um, one of my writing mentors, I just love him, Peter Elbow, he died [00:20:00] recently.

1. He calls the believing versus the doubting game. He says, critical thinking is often what they call the doubting game. It's the ability to be skeptical instantly. You know, can we trust the USDA and their mm-hmm. Conclusions about food, right? Mm-hmm. It's this immediate decision that no authority is reliable.

Nobody is reliable except the people I trust, right? But the believing game is sort of the opposite of that. What if this were true? Starting with the idea that this thing, I don't like what, what is, what is the sort of layers, and it's very hard to start with something like. You know, the final solution in Nazi Germany.

Mm-hmm. Like, that's not a good one to start with. Start with raw milk. You know, pick something that is not quite so, uh, obviously condemned by the universal, and ask yourself what values are attached to that position? What do people who hold it get out of it? What could I learn from [00:21:00] that perspective? Um, a good example of that right now is Ramadan for Islam.

And when I was living in Morocco, um, as a young adult, I was a Christian missionary at the time, you know, a lot of hubris, but we were there to convert Muslims, right? We were in a Muslim majority country. And one of the years, uh, my husband and I decided. To fast for the entire month of Ramadan because everybody else was, and we thought this would be a really good way to make friends and be in the flow with them even though we weren't Muslims.

And it completely transformed my understanding of Islam and its value to people and why fasting had meaning and why feasting in the knight's head, meaning, and it what communal sacrifice and celebration felt like for an entire month. It was one of the most life changing experiences of my life, and I remember at the end of it thinking, I don't think I can ask people to give this up.

Crystal: Mm-hmm.

Julie: You know, it was life changing. And so I think sometimes [00:22:00] we presume things without our own direct encounter. I talk about that in the book. Uh, reading experience and encounter encounter changes us the most. It destabilizes our sources of authority and it puts us in direct contact. With what it feels like instead of just reading and theorizing and thinking about something.

Crystal: I loved your perspectives on encounter in it being something that like is kind of jarring. Your, your story actually was just like, I. Heartbreaking and also amazing and like, I think it was an encounter of itself to, to listen. Um, can you share that story with us? The one where you're, you were sitting in a classroom and your professor started talking about US history and you Oh yeah.

Thought it was gonna go a certain way and then it didn't. I I just think that story needs to be told.

Julie: It's so good. Yeah, it was, it was incredible. I was in what was called a black theology class. I was getting my master's degree at Xavier University, and the goal of this class was to look at the Christian tradition.

Through black theologians who were [00:23:00] American. And so the first day of class, our professor just started sharing and he was like, so here's the story of the United States. And he's like, there were these three ships, the Nina, the Pinta, the Santa Maria, and the pilgrims, you know, came for religious freedom.

And he is just telling the story exactly how I've always heard it, and I'm like, nodding along. And then all of a sudden he said. Um, there's another story, uh, and it is the Amistad, and he named a couple of slave ships and he said they arrived on the shores. He said, when I was a child, the only story I heard was of the Mayflower and the pilgrims and the Jamestown.

He said, but I knew instantly sitting in that classroom that that story had nothing to do with me. I'm black. My ancestors didn't come that way. They came on these other ships and nobody's mentioning them in the story of how America was founded, and yet that was as big, if not more. I mean, millions of [00:24:00] Africans were transported on that transatlantic slavery route, and it's not a part of the initial story.

And then he says, you know, they describe America as this like. Untamed Wilderness. Yeah. And yet it's like got native populations all over, living all over. And you know, eventually millions of them were killed, um, because of Westford expansion. And so what was destabilizing and interesting was to consider a few things.

First of all, my ancestors came over during the Pati potato famine, so I also don't have a connection to the Mayflower. Mm-hmm. And yet I've always felt connected. Because not only is it the story I've been told, but I'm white and I was raised with a religious tradition that was similar to that one, and I felt very much like that was my story and to find out that it wasn't my story and then to realize that there are a lot of stories that aren't being told, and there is one that's being [00:25:00] championed above all others.

Was like this massive moment for me of, and I was a history major in college, so it's kind of shocking to me that it took till I was in my forties in a master's program to really grapple with. How the storytelling shapes your beliefs, that storytelling itself actually impacts what you adopt as your worldview.

Crystal: Yeah. I gonna read a little bit in the encounters that you write here. 'cause I love it. I was being invited to confront, to encounter the completely different experience of my professor and his memories of second grade encounter is like that. Like a knife. It cuts through the tedium of study and the vague certainties we take for granted encounter is that knife it slices through our conventional understanding.

The result, revelation, epiphanies, and aha moments encounter accomplishes its work through. First. The first time we hear a viewpoint or have an experience, um, the familiar definition of the word encounter is to meet with an adversary. Ah, I love that. And like, because we often think of like it being like this [00:26:00] fight, like debate.

Like, let me listen to your side. Let me listen to my, you know, you listen to my side, and then we'll figure out who's right and wrong. Yes. The critical thinking is so less about, let me figure out who's right and wrong, but let me think about this an entirely different way.

Julie: In fact, one of the most, um, amazing, uh, pieces of, of writing that I read in grad school was by Hans Geor Gatr, and he wrote, um, a piece called Truth and Method and the Art of Hermeneutics, which is, how is textual criticism done?

How do we evaluate a text that was written in the past? And what he said that really stayed with me is that interpretation only lasts as long as a day. It's the moment that a person interprets, then the next person who comes along. It's already, the interpretation is already removed. And I start my book by talking about, um, actually my grandparents' sex life, which I think is really funny.

Can we tell that story I was gonna ask you?

Crystal: Is that too [00:27:00] awkward to talk about podcast, but at all? I think it's hilarious.

Julie: Yeah. Well, what's really funny is when I was getting ready to write this book, my mother, who is. You know, publish was a published author and my boyfriend, who's a lawyer, I said, I'm gonna be writing about Critical Thinking.

And they were like, oh, well not every book you write can be as interesting as your first book. And I was like, what? This is gonna be interesting. I only write interesting books. So I was like, challenge accepted. So I started going through my whole history to find a great opening and I thought, ha, sex. That will do it.

It's so good. So good. Okay, so share the story with us. Yeah. So the basic story is this. When my grandfather died, my grandmother was still living and my, I had two aunts, uh, one who had been a nun and was a professor of religion and married at that point. And the other one who was like 15 years, her junior, who had really been raised.

With like Vatican two and kind of the hippie movement of the sixties and seventies, so two very different orientations to life. So when my [00:28:00] grandfather died, I was at my older aunt's home with my younger aunt, and we were going through all their belongings and found this box of. Opened letters that were written from my grandfather to his wife, and they were clearly written in the most recent years.

And so I pulled this one letter out of the envelope and I just start reading his beautiful penmanship as he's writing to his wife on the occasion of their anniversary. And he starts describing how they met and their journey of love. And then he says, you know, do you remember when we climbed to the little hilltop where I first made love to you?

And I read this out, I'm like, wait a minute, you know like this is the 1920s or thirties and I'm I, and so I read this to my two aunts and my aunt who had been the nun immediately shut it down. That is what you think it means. You know? Of course they didn't have sex. My younger aunt immediately was like, they lectured me about my Virginia and they were having sex before marriage.

So this huge debate [00:29:00] erupted between the, the two of them. And I was egging it on 'cause I just thought it was so funny. Eventually I asked my mother what she thought, and she landed on the side that her parents didn't have sex before marriage. Even though all of my adult kids who were at the time were in their like twenties and thirties, all said they definitely did, right?

Mm-hmm. So this really became like a thing to me because I. The idea of making love. If you look back to the 1930s and forties, I did not know

Crystal: this until your book, by the way. I had no idea. Oh, amazingly so I definitely sided with your

Julie: 20 and 30-year-old kids. I was like, yeah. Yes, exactly. Because the term to make love, and you'll see this in with, it's a wonderful life.

So there's like even some outside validation where you can see it for yourself. It just meant to put the moves on the woman of your dreams. You're like. You're, you're, you're flirting at a, like a pretty serious level. You're like, I wanna make her mine. It's, that's what making love was. It was like, I'm showing you all my cards, how in love I am with you.

And, [00:30:00] and so that's the language of that era. But here was the tricky part. My grandfather wrote this in 1997. Of course he knew that language had evolved, but his wife had dementia and he was writing her these letters trying to jog her memory. To be present with him. So the question became, if we're doing textual criticism

Crystal: mm-hmm.

Julie: What meaning did he give to the words making love? Was he using the old meaning to try and jog her memory in a way that she would understand? Was he just confessing his love to her on that hilltop or? Were these letters private? And he figured no one would ever read them. And he knew the evolving language and he was remembering the first time they had sex.

We don't know and there's no way to know because he's dead. She didn't have her mind available. And the meaning of those words had changed over time. So you could write a paper that would support either position and be right, and also you could be completely wrong [00:31:00] and had to, I was end.

Crystal: Does she

Julie: tell us, does the mystery get uncovered?

It doesn't. It does not. And we have to live with that ambiguity and there's even value in seeing it both ways and appreciating my grandparents through either of those possibilities. A lot of times what we're trying to do is clamp down on a truth because the fact seems so important, but really the fact is less important here.

Part of it is a Rorschach test on your own feelings about religion. Mm-hmm. About sexuality, about what it means to be a virgin or not. About intimacy, about dementia, like so many layers to this discussion. And honestly, if you were gonna do a true research project, then you'd wanna go through and interview all the relatives and read all of the letters and you know, kind of like amass more information than just one flimsy remark in a letter.

Mm-hmm. That he wrote late in life. But I loved opening with that because I think so often we're using terms. [00:32:00] That don't even mean the same thing to both people. Mm-hmm. Like I remember being a part of the pro-life movement and then dedicating myself to reading about the pro-choice movement because I thought they think they have morality on their side and I can't see it.

Mm-hmm. I don't know how they have concluded that after I read their version of why they saw the world the way they did, I was like, oh my gosh, we're not even talking about the same thing. Yes.

Crystal: Like never choice of life. Never have I

Julie: heard it talked about in the same way, they're not talking about the same thing.

Mm-hmm. So they're missing every time they have a conversation, every time we try to do national policy. And one of the things that I really contend for, and I I, we're hopefully gonna be in this moment someday, but we're not there now. The goal isn't to win. The goal is to account for as many experiences and needs as possible in our public policy.

If we're gonna talk about sensible gun laws or whatever that means, we have to include lots of experiences, not just the [00:33:00] hunters, not just the people who work in firearm, you know, firearms, or the people in the police force, or even just the victims of gun violence. We need everybody's input. To create a set of rules and policies that account for as many perspectives as possible.

It means a lot of nuance. It means a lot of sitting with the discomfort that your view is being challenged by someone else's, and that's what we're not good at.

Crystal: Yeah, I was, um, the quote that you shared for Adam Grant, it says, the author of Think Again, put it on his Instagram accounts. The hallmark of a productive debate is not persuasion, but insight Exactly.

Isn't that so good? It's like, wait, it's not, I'm right and you're wrong. And I love reading about child development and I remember reading years ago in a child development book, I think it was, um, rest, play Grow with Dr. Deborah McNamara. And she talks about these levels of kind of development that we go through when we're younger.

Handling Differing Opinions Respectfully

And one of them is this idea of I can have an opinion and you can have an opinion and it doesn't mean I'm right and you're wrong, but we can both hold different opinions and [00:34:00] that as people go through, you know, secure attachment and development and whatever, that is something we can grow and develop into.

But not everybody has that skill. So I think this book is teaching us how we can figure out that skill. Is it okay for me to have an opinion that differs from you? Can I sit and understand you instead of trying to persuade you that my opinion is right?

Julie: Well, and sometimes we're dealing with, I think today where people are struggling as they feel like.

Is it an opinion if somebody is literally contradicting fact? Mm-hmm. And so then the question becomes, is fact the most important thing in the debate? Mm-hmm. Because opinions when a person says, oh, I have an opinion, so let's pick an absurd one. Like I. I think the earth is flat. Okay. So yes. I was just thinking that one.

Okay. Yeah, so, so you've got, you know, I, one of my friends, her ex-husband believes the earth is flat. And I was like, walk me through this. I really wanna understand like, how does he come to this awareness? What is he doing to justify this position? And so she gave me kind of like [00:35:00] all of the different beliefs that had led him to this conclusion.

The question at that point isn't about facts. There is something about the attractiveness of holding a position that is so opposite of the majority view. That feels really safe and reassuring. There's something about being a part of the group that has secret knowledge that is more important than consensus.

So now, if you're talking with someone in your family like this, this comes up all the time. People say, I don't agree with my dad's position. Like I'm just supposed to say, well, it's okay for him to think these people, you know, deserve X treatment. When I'm sure that they don't, you know, we don't agree, and I think he's wrong.

So where I say is the question is you have, you have a couple options. One is you don't have to engage over it because probably solving it in the living room isn't gonna change the world as much as we wish it would. But the second way that you can address it is to be curious about [00:36:00] why this is logically coherent to that person.

So the way the way we do that is not by putting them on the defensive, because then they'll start attacking you and calling you names and all of that. Here's the key question you can ask. You can say to this father, let's pick a dad. Dad, tell me how this belief you have creates a more beautiful world for all of us.

I'm curious about that by asking it in that way. You put them in their best vocabulary. They get to cast a vision for you about why this belief feels beautiful and sacred to them, or important to them as opposed to defensive about why yours is so bad. Theirs is the obvious conclusion. Can you feel like the energetic shift question creates so often?

What will happen then is they'll start to tell you. You'll hear the holes because you can't not hear them because you hold a completely different perspective. So the way that you now manage the difference is to ask a follow-up question first. Be [00:37:00] sure you really understood what they said. Feed it back to them.

Oh, I see. You think free speech and you think this and you imagine that. I get it. Oh, I, I get why that's important to you. Follow up with this question. How does your view account for, and insert the thing that you think is left out? Mm, what is the thing? So let's say you're arguing over homeschooling and you know, this parent is like educational standards and you know, you've gotta have the right kind of curriculum and how can you trust, you know yourself.

You've, you're not a, you're not good at math. I taught you my whole life and you're bad at math. How are you gonna teach your kids? And they kind of batten down the hatches, you know, and he's a principal of a high school, so you feel extra. So you say, well, what's your beautiful vision? And they start to describe this picture of public school that's really beautiful that they think is the right vision.

Crystal: Mm-hmm. So

Julie: then you can say, well, how does that account for kids who can't sit in a desk?

Crystal: Child

Julie: with a learning disability, how does that account for [00:38:00] kids who have thrived when they've had some freedom to explore? Like you can bring in your question, the thing they're omitting in their discussion. Now, they may not change their view, but what you've done is you've shifted the energy of the discussion from agree to disagree.

To actually trying to generate some insight for both sides, letting them get a window, a peek into how you see the world and you getting a window or a peek into how they see it.

Crystal: Yeah, I love how you talk about, um, following a child's dissent. 'cause we like to, like, whenever they dissent from us, we're like, no, no, no, no.

Like, just do it our way. And also that manipulative obedience, like, let me pretend like there's two options here, but really there's just one and you need to follow it in order to be a good girl or a good boy or whatever. And so I love this idea of like, let's like follow their descent for a little bit.

Let's let them like. It might be uncomfortable for us to follow, but let's let, let them think about things in a different way. And, um, an introduction. You said you might be [00:39:00] wondering, as I did while raising my kids. Is it more dangerous to read the opposing view or to be protected from it? Whew. And that, oh, I was like, that is the, that is the line that I read that I knew that I was gonna have to read this book much more slowly than I was imagining, because I was like, oh, this is the question.

Like I think that in so many circles in my life, whether it's church or homeschool or, yeah, I don't know, holistic communities, whatever. Has been like, no, you protect yourself from the other belief. You just get really firm on your belief. You read as much as you can on your side, and as soon as I read that question, I knew the answer and was like, no, that is not what has led to a good education for me.

That is not what has led to even understanding what my opinions are. In a deeper way, my own, um, personal religious faith has been cemented by learning about other faiths and integrating other pieces that my religion was missing from other. Aspects, um, like [00:40:00] meditation from Buddhism or like, um, there's just been so many pieces that have added to my own personal faith.

So I really do think that it is, um, allowing our kids not only descent, but also putting them in arenas. Where they can hear completely different worldviews, completely different opinions than what we're teaching them at home. Instead of it being this sharp contrast of like, now I'm an adult and this happened to a friend of mine, and now I learn about evolution for the very first time, and I write a paper on why my professor wrong.

My professor's like, no, no, no, no, no. Have you never heard all of this? You know? Anyways. Fascinating.

Julie: No, that's so good. I think there's a difference between certainty and confidence too. Mm-hmm. Like you can have some confidence in beliefs. People say sometimes that this is a very postmodern approach and you're just being relativistic.

No, you can have confidence in beliefs, but certainty is a whole other level. Certainty excludes the possibility that new information could change your mind. Mm-hmm. And new information should change your mind. [00:41:00] That's the thing. When we do more research, when we understand more, our minds will be shaped differently.

One of the mistakes I believe in the early homeschooling movement was the feeling that everybody needed to adopt a perspective and then just become a apologist for it. We're gonna just amass. Yes. A whole bunch of information that keeps doubling down on the belief we decided was true before we investigated it.

And the problem with that is kids. Are actually pretty smart about. I logic, you know? Mm-hmm. I remember reading the Old Testament every day with my kids and they were asking me these incredible questions and I was like, I've just been reading it sort of without a critical mind, and they are hearing these stories for the first time and asking very ordinary questions like, wait, God opened up the earth, and all those people got killed.

Yeah. How is that loving? Yeah, great question. Is there just some stupid answer I'm gonna give, or am I gonna grapple with the fact that that is kind of a disturbing thing to read to children [00:42:00] and still reconcile it with this other story I keep telling them? And so I think being open to your own, um. Your own growth is really important, and having firm opinions does not define you.

Firm opinions are just what you have today. You know how many of us still believe what we believed at 15, and how many of us have the identical? I don't what I

Crystal: believed five years ago.

Julie: In pretty much every area of my life. I mean, absolutely. But when we have kids, we're like, oh no. They believe the wrong thing at 15 as though that person's gonna hold that till they're 60.

You know, give them some room. I remember, I think I shared in the book, but one of my kids went on this YouTube rabbit trail into the deep like Illuminati conspiracy theory world. Yeah. I, my husband at the time was like, oh my gosh, we gotta tell him those are conspiracy theories. And I said, well, hang on, he's 15.

He can't even vote yet. So like, how dangerous [00:43:00] is this? So we used it as a chance to just notice for the first time, it had never occurred to him that the system of money and the system of politics that we had today. It could have an alternative story. It was sort of like me being in that classroom.

Mm-hmm. Like, wait, there are people who critique capitalism. Uh, is that, whoa, mind blowing for a 15-year-old today, he's a human rights lawyer. He kept going. Mm. But he didn't stay there. But it's like, that's what caught his attention was there's a different story that could be told about the way the world is organized.

So sometimes you just wanna pull back a little bit and ask yourself. What is my child getting from this view? Not is the view right or wrong, but what about the view is triggering like a new thought world? Yeah, and you get to be a part of it. If you're a part of it, you won't be a part of it if you just try to shut it down and shout it down.

Crystal: Yeah. And what are they really asking? Right? I have a sibling that, um, doesn't believe in the moon landing, and we've had a lot of conversations [00:44:00] about that. And I think the question behind it is really like, is government to be trusted? Do they, that's it. Like if they just say, if they say something, do we just automatically believe it?

Yes. Or can we think critically about it? Because there actually, he gave me some pretty solid evidence. I was like, oh. And then I watched that movie that came out recently, fly Me to the Moon, and I'm like, this is it. Anyways, it was so fascinating to hear, um, to hear his side and really just sit and listen and understand.

But I love that idea of like, what are they really asking? What are they exactly looking into? Because that is learning. That's, and if they's it, if we constantly push down the descent. We stop them from learning because of our own discomfort. And you, well, and they, they'll probably

Julie: keep going, but now you won't be a part of it.

Yeah, because you can't really stop dissent like it, it lives inside of a person, so if you're not a participant in the conversation, it's happening without you. They're conversing with their friends. Mm-hmm. They're conversing online, they're reading books, they're conversing with themselves. And so really the question is.[00:45:00]

What kind of relationship do you want with your child? Is the terms of the relationship agreement or is it knowing each other? And if it's knowing each other, you're gonna have to get comfortable with them not being like you. And I as a mother whose oldest child is almost 38 and youngest is 28, I'm here to tell you they will not agree with you.

On everything. And in some cases they will make amazing arguments. You've never thought about for things that you didn't spend time considering because their area of interest, their experience, their generation, their worldview is being shaped. I. In a different time, you know? Mm-hmm. It's a different era for them, so they're gonna think about the world differently than I did.

Modeling Critical Thinking as Parents

Yeah. And it's like, everything

Crystal: that I talk about on this podcast is like, what matters most? And the answer is always like, for, for me, for what we discuss here is always relationship. Like if relationship and connection matter most, then what? Like, then do we, you know, allow descent? Do we listen to them?

Are we part of that? And I think a lot of that has comes back to our own ability to tolerate discomfort. Yeah. Because you [00:46:00] mentioned this in a few times in the book, like. It's easier for me to read Tara West Over's book and sit there by myself in my room feeling the discomfort of like, oh, like listen to her story versus like having a conversation with someone.

'cause that can really inflame us. Um, we do this thing as humans called personalization, where we make. Somebody else's behavior and opinions and beliefs mean something about us. So we feel inflammation. And so it can be helpful to start small, like you said, like TED talks and reading books and you know, listening to things online.

But just noticing what's happening in my inner world. What about this is making me uncomfortable? 'cause usually the deeper question is like, am I wrong? Like, is there, you know, what if I am wrong? What does that mean about me? Have I caused harm? Totally.

Julie: Totally. And you'll lose your people. I mean, when I started.

Just asking sincere questions about my beliefs. I got kicked out of lots of communities, like it had a material impact on my business. It had a emotional and relational impact on my family. Uh, we [00:47:00] were kicked out of homeschooling organizations. Mm-hmm. So it's not a small thing. Mm-hmm. That's what you're asking people to do when you're asking them to change their beliefs, you're saying?

Put all of the things that you value at risk because I'm right. So have some compassion for that. That's a very hard thing to ask people to do. You're asking them to convert. It's no different than asking a Muslim to leave their faith, and our tendency is to think well being right is its own reward. It's not.

It's not very much of a reward. Honestly. Being right is very alone, very lonely a lot of times. So getting more comfortable with this sort of, um, feeling. Everything being transitory is what am, what humans don't like. They want certainty. Certainty. They want belonging. Mm-hmm. They want membership and so just be aware that when you're in these conversations with your kids or your parents or your community and you start to show up with a different point of view, it's threatening.

Mm-hmm. They see the threat too. [00:48:00] They're like, yeah, I'm not gonna become like her 'cause I'll lose all this. Mm-hmm. It's very hard. So have a little compassion, you know? Yeah. Even for those people that right now you really log horns with.

Crystal: Yes, especially

Julie: those

Crystal: people. I find it, especially those people, easier to love the people that are like, you know, hard done by and have hard lives and like that you would think to be compassionate about.

It's so much more difficult for me to be compassionate about the ones that are like, I'm gonna stick to my beliefs. I'm not gonna waiver. Yes, I'm gonna be really defensive and aggressive. And I'm like, oh, like it's, it's hard to put yourself in their shoes or to, like you said in the book too, like it's not really putting yourself in their shoes, but it's looking at it from their perspective.

Right. Oh my gosh.

Julie: That's probably my favorite insight in the whole book. Mm-hmm. Um, it's this asymmetrical reciprocity and that came from Iris Marian Young, and she's a researcher out of pit. Uh, and one of my, uh, good friends put me onto her work. Basically what she says is this, is that when we're trying to exert compassion, a lot of times [00:49:00] we say, let's walk a mile in the other person's shoes.

Yes, let's try to inhabit their perspective. But what we typically do is we project the person we are. Into their shoes. Mm-hmm. So we say things like, well, if I were a person who you know, was disabled, I would hate being a wheelchair. In a wheelchair, so I'd rather be dead. Right? But that's the full able-bodied person imagining losing their able body and thinking what a tragedy that is.

Meanwhile, the person who is disabled and coping with not having an able body. Is solving that problem for themselves. They're like, I am going to have a worthwhile life.

Crystal: Mm-hmm. That is an

Julie: inaccurate understanding of what it feels like to be disabled. I am not hating myself in my life every day, but we tend to project, I.

I, I remember being in this black theology class and, um, the professor made this profound statement. He said, white people all the time say, you know, that they're not, that they don't [00:50:00] discriminate, they don't have racism. And then I say to them, okay, well, would you be willing then to stop being white and to be black?

And he said they visibly freeze. Hmm. They freeze. Like, they're like, well, no, I don't wanna be black. The second that you know, that you don't want to be black tells you everything about being black in America.

Crystal: Hmm.

Julie: So you can say, yeah, I believe they're equal and we've done so much for them and I have no hatred in my heart.

And I'm not a racist. But you know, there's racism when the thought of being black seems. Not good on what grounds. Instead of asking

Crystal: yourself, like I, I find that we so often go right to like, let me prove that I'm not. Yes. Lemme say to you that I'm not racist. That's right. And I think the question of like, where is my bias?

Yeah. Show me, show me how I'm wrong about this has brought me the most insight in every single area of my life. Yeah. Show me what I'm missing. Show me what I'm not seeing. Show me, um, where there is a piece of this still within me. And it doesn't matter if [00:51:00] it's like religion or sociologically or whatever, like that has been the most insight generating question.

Julie: Absolutely. Yeah, that's for sure. True. I remember on Oprah years ago, this would be in the eighties probably, or early nineties, there, she had a trans woman on her show who had been a high school football star as a boy when he was, you know, a teen. And he went to his, uh, he, she went to the 10 year reunion as a female.

So Oprah was interviewing this woman. And the part that stayed with me, I, this is not a commentary on whether or not trans is something we should discuss in this podcast. That's not where I'm going, but this is what's always stayed with me. Oprah said, what would you like people to know about your experience as being a trans woman?

And she said this, she said, I wish. She said, once I became a woman, the world changed for me. And I realized I had a memory of what it was like to be a man and a boy. And she said, when I was [00:52:00] a boy, I knew the entire world was open to me and I could do whatever I wanted. And when I became a woman, I suddenly realized it wasn't, and yet I remember that feeling so I can access it.

And I wish all women could experience what that feels like once in their lives. I've never forgotten that. Isn't that powerful? Isn't that powerful? And so when people tell you all the time, women are equal and there's nothing going on, here's somebody who's had the encounter of both experiences saying, actually it is different.

This is that asymmetrical reciprocity. It is the willingness to believe the truth of a person in the experience over your assessment of what that experience should be. That's the difference. Just being willing to believe that when someone reports their experience, they're not lying. Mm-hmm. And you might not be able to relate to it.

Final Thoughts and Takeaways

Crystal: Okay. This has been such a good discussion. It's so fascinating. I [00:53:00] wanna read what you say in the, at the end of your acknowledgements. Oh, the work is never done and we never arrive. But each vista helps us see something new, something we might have missed. And isn't that the work of critical thinking in the end?

It's the art of navigating a highway as it's being built. I'm grateful to all my fellow thinkers who are willing to shift gears and change directions as needed to bring more light and optimism to living among one another. Hmm. That's amazing. It is beautiful. It's so beautiful. It's never done. We've never arrived.

We've never got to that point where like, is it nature versus nurture? Oh no, I know. Now I know. I've got it. Like let's move on to the next thing. It's this like back and forth and grappling with an understanding and gaining more insight and isn't that the kind of world that we wanna live in? Totally. I want to.

Mm-hmm. So thank you. Thank you for this book. Thank you for taking the time to share your insights and um, and it did end up being a really fascinating and awesome book. So you [00:54:00] can tell your boyfriend that just as good.

Julie: He read it. He liked it. And my mom did too. It was very amazing. They were like, you did it.

I was like, I'm a writer. I have to make it relevant. I. Stories. Yeah.

Crystal: I love it. Thank you. Thank you, thank you. Thank you, crystal. Thank you for being on here. And if you wanna just tell people where they can connect with you on Instagram, on your podcast.

Julie: Yeah, that's great. Um, so Instagram, Julie, brave writer.

Uh, I have a substack now called Brave Learning with Julie Bogart. So if you're interested in that, uh, brave writer.com is obviously where our curriculum is. And then I have an author website now, julie bogart writer.com and help my kid hates writing is on sale, uh, in presales right now. And we'll be out in April in addition to my other books.

Yeah, thank you. We'll have those

Crystal: links in the show notes in case you wanna connect over there. And thanks again for coming on. Thanks, crystal. If you enjoyed this episode as much as I did, I would love for you to help spread the word by getting this message of support and guidance out to as [00:55:00] many people as possible.

So text it to your best friend or tag me on Instagram and share it. Leave a review, rate it, subscribe it, or follow on your favorite platform. Send me a DM on IG letting me know which parts have impacted you or what you'd like to see on future episodes. We'll see you next week.