October 7, 2025 • 38 mins
Are you struggling to teach your kids how to think critically in today’s world?
In this episode of the Schoolhouse Rocked Podcast, host Aby Rinella sits down with Kathy Gibbens—homeschool mom, creator of the podcast "Filter It Through a Brain Cell," and logic enthusiast. Kathy shares her journey through homeschooling her daughter from K–12, the importance of teaching logic, and practical ways to make logic fun and relevant for your family.
Discover why logic isn’t innate, how “spot the lie” games can become powerful learning tools, and how logic skills help kids confidently navigate the culture. Plus, get Kathy’s tips for engaging your kids in meaningful conversations about truth, worldview, and faith!
Recommended Resources:
• Filter It Through a Brain Cell
• The Fallacy Detective, by Nathaniel Bluedorn and Hans Bluedorn
• Mere Christianity, by C.S. Lewis
• Live Not By Lies, by Rod Dreher
Sponsors:
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CTCMath specializes in providing online video tutorials that take a multi-sensory approach to learning. Creative graphics and animation, synchronized with the friendly voice of internationally acclaimed teacher, Pat Murray, make learning math easy and effective. Start your free trial today.
The Schoolhouse Rocked Podcast is a member of the Biblical Family Network. Our mission is to support and encourage the family by providing the very best podcasts on family, discipleship, marriage, parenting, worldview, culture, and education, all from a Biblical perspective. Visit the website for more great shows, like the Thinking Dad, Culture Proof, The Nicki Truesdell Podcast, Homeschool Insights, and Made2Homeschool.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
Let's go back and forth. If the goal is to buckle toward
truth, we don't have to be afraid, because if the thing
that we believe is true, we willwind up back there again.
We can put anything on the tableand we can wrestle with it
because the goal is always to find truth.
People are so afraid because they think, what if I discovered
that the thing that I believe isn't true?
Well, wouldn't you want to know that?
(00:22):
Hey everybody, welcome back to the Schoolhouse Rocked podcast.
I am Abby Rinella and I am superexcited to be your host this
week and next with another amazing guest, Kathy Gibbons,
who I cannot wait to share her with you and tell you why I'm so
excited to be here with her. But first, I need to thank our
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(00:45):
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(01:08):
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(01:30):
OK Kathy Gibbons, we have been trying to record for several
months now and we are finally here.
And I have to open this up for everybody to know this hilarious
story. So a long time ago I found Kathy
Gibbons and I will explain how. And I called the producers of
this show and said, Oh, my goodness, I have to interview
this woman. I discovered her.
(01:52):
Like, I've discovered this person.
And they are like, OK, Abby, everybody knows Kathy Gibbons.
Like everybody knows Kathy Gibbons.
That would be like, hey, can BenCarson come on the podcast?
Like people know who she is? And I was sort of sad because I
thought, like, I just found the gold in the home school world.
And I was going to be the personthat's like you guys look who I
(02:12):
discovered, but to my I did not know, but everybody knows now.
Kathy Gibbons is actually incredibly well known in the
homeschool community and has actually been on Schoolhouse
Rock podcast before several years ago.
But I discovered her because I'ma homeschool mom and I was
scrolling through stuff to try to teach my kids logic, and I
(02:36):
stumbled upon this incredible podcast called Filter It Through
a Brain Cell. And since that day, Kathy
Gibbons has been in my living room every single morning of my
homeschool because we are using her incredible podcast as part
of our curriculum, which we're going to talk about in a little
bit. So Kathy Gibbons, welcome on
(02:57):
screen. I actually get to see what you
look like in real life, but I'm telling you, I spend every
morning with you, so I'm glad toreally be spending it now with
you. Oh my gosh, Abby, that can I
just tell you how much that makes my day to hear this story
that is so I mean, as a podcaster, I love it.
As a mother, I love it. And just as a fellow
homeschooling mom, like you've made my day.
(03:17):
So thank you so much. I'm so happy to be here.
Well. I appreciate you making my day
to do the hard thing of of helping me to teach my kids
logic. But before we dive into why
that's important and why we're even doing that, will you just
share a little bit about you andyour family and just share with
everybody who you are? Yeah, so I'm Kathy.
I have been a homeschool mom for13 years and my daughter just
(03:42):
graduated. We have homeschooled her since
the very beginning, so K through12 and she just graduated in
May. So it's kind of weird.
I'm in this weird place of, Oh my goodness, now what?
Like, what's next? What are we going to do?
What am I going to do with myself?
But it has been a fantastic journey.
We have loved homeschooling. It has fit our family very, very
(04:04):
well. And I, I just it, it's something
that I love supporting. I love supporting homeschool
families. I love being a part of this
community. And so yeah, I'm super excited
to be here, to be able to. Encourage.
Yeah. So just one daughter.
Wow. We might talk.
I mean, let's see if we have time.
If not, we're going to have to have you come back to talk about
(04:25):
what it's like homeschooling a single.
Right, because. One, a lot of people do that and
two, we're all going to have to at some point when all of our
olders launch, we're all going to be left with 1.
So I did not realize that. Let's I would love to talk a
little bit about that today after we talk about the all
important topic of logic. So your little tagline for a
filter it through a brain cell. Everybody needs to go right now
(04:47):
on their podcast what app, whatever that it is and you need
to subscribe to it. It her little tagline is
teaching what is it not? What?
Tell me in the tagline teaching kids not.
What to think but. How to think.
And I think that that really sums up to me.
That's the tagline for homeschool, right?
We're teaching kids not what to think, but how to think.
(05:08):
And it reminds me of that quote.And I don't know who said it,
but we're not filling buckets, we're lighting fires, right?
But this is The thing is, I always thought that logic was
either like just something that you had, like everybody has
logic, like common sense, right?We have book smart and we have
common sense slash logic. And then 2020 hit and I looked
(05:30):
around the world. I'm like, oh goodness, nobody
really has logic. Like we've lost our ever loving
minds. Like people are not thinking
people are. I mean it it really brought to
light that logic is just not innate.
Like it's not just something that our kids grow up having.
We actually have to be intentional in teaching kids
(05:51):
logic. And so I dove in and I'm like, I
tried all the different logic curriculums.
I tried all the different. And where I struggled is there's
all these terminologies, right? Like the straw man and the red
herring and the and, and my kidswere like, it just became a, a
game of how to memorize the wordand then what part of logic it
was. And then I stumbled upon your
podcast and you do use those terminologies, but what you do
(06:14):
is you make it applicable to real life.
And so one of my questions is, is now that I'm learning like
parents, we have to teach our kids logic.
This is an innate and I want youto share a little bit one about
that. And like, that's, that was a new
discovery to me in 2020. And I'm pretty sure the whole
world figured that out real quick in 2020.
But explain why that is. And then I also want to know
(06:37):
what what inspired in you to go down this road of making logic a
passion and helping us parents to learn it?
Yep, no. So you set me up so well asking
the question about kind of how it got started and also 2020
because that's where it got started.
So the school year 2019-2020 my daughter was in the 7th grade
and I was leading her We were part of classical conversations
(07:01):
so a homeschool We had a little homeschool group where we met
once a week with. She had a class of 12 kids and
one of the part of their curriculum for the second
semester, which would have been 2020, which we all know what
happened in 2020, right? All the craziness.
They had to read this book called the Fallacy Detective and
I was leading the class with them.
(07:22):
And so we went through and it introduces every week.
They learned like one or two newfallacies and then they just had
fun with it. Well, what was so interesting
was watching these kids even just get an introduction to
critical thinking. And I, it was my introduction
too. I hadn't learned this.
I never, I didn't know what logical fallacies were.
(07:42):
I had no idea it was all new to me.
Well, watching these, what are they?
1213 years old? However, the old they are in 7th
grade they picked up on. They learned them so quickly and
what was amazing is watching them navigate that period of
time in our country as compared with their peers.
(08:04):
So watching a presidential debate or any kind of political
debate with a kid who has learned some logical fallacies
is such a different ball game. They were able to pick him out
like that totally. Like, because at that age, you
know, when a kid is in middle school, all they want, it seems
like as the parent, all they want to do is argue, right?
(08:26):
If you say, oh, it's it's noon, what are they going to say?
No, it's not. It's 11:50. 8 Totally, totally,
or even worse, Actually, no, it's 12:00.
Yeah, exactly. Exactly.
All they want to do is argue, but it's because that's what
they're that's where their braindevelopment is.
They are at this place where their brain is developing.
They're wanting to think and they're wanting to, their brain
(08:48):
is wanting to make sense of the world around them.
And it comes out as arguing. And we as parents, we get
annoyed and we're like, don't argue with me.
Don't talk back to me, right? No, if we can change our
perspective on that and say, OK,they are wanting, they're
looking for, right? They are looking to make sense
of the world around them. They are looking for what's true
and how to make sense of what they're seeing.
(09:09):
And if we can, if we can take, take it and look at it a little
bit differently and not be offended that they're arguing
with us, OK, They, they have this natural inclination toward
arguing and rightness and justice.
OK, let's take that and train that and let's teach them how to
quote UN quote, argue and debate, but how to do it well
(09:30):
and how to do it rightly. And so watching these kids, I
had this, I had this thought. I thought, Oh my goodness, if
our whole country just had this ability to think, to think about
what they're seeing and ask the question, is that true?
Are they telling me the truth? Could is there anything else
that's been going on? Am I being manipulated here?
(09:51):
Right. If you could just do that, our
country would be in a very different place than where we're
at right now. And I thought this and watching
these kids how much like they loved it.
It was fun for them. They and they this was one of
the their favorite parts of the day was having fun and they love
to go home and catch their parents committing A logical
(10:12):
fallacy. They loved it.
You know, let's catch these adults saying stuff that doesn't
make sense or that's not true. And so that's what gave me the
heart. Like this can be easy and this
can be fun. Let's give it to these kids
because once they have it, they will always have it.
Once they have the skill to recognize good thinking, bad
thinking, logical fallacies, they will always have it.
(10:33):
And if we can teach them and encourage them to ask questions,
now, we don't have to be afraid of them hearing crazy stuff
because they'll be like, that's crazy.
Right. They'll have it.
Totally. It's so true and you have to be
prepared that once your kids learn this, they're going to
start calling you out because there was one day where I was
saying something and my son's like, mom, that's a red herring.
And I'm like, OK, well, you passed the class, but we're
(10:55):
going to, right? And we just.
They just need to be able. The thing that I always tell
parents when we get to this partis OK, listen, they're going to
they're going to call you out and you need to be able to let
them do that. It's OK, totally, but they have
to be respectful. I love that.
I just love this because when mykids were little, we always
played a game called spot the lie.
(11:16):
And it started with, you know, we we get a really cool book and
it would be like millions of years ago and we would just
start to teach our kids, you know, spot the lie, spot the lie
in the TV show, spot the lie in the book.
And we were never a family. That's like, you cannot, you
know, nothing comes into her house.
It hasn't been is an absolutely truth because we wanted to teach
(11:37):
them, you know what, we can watch this as long as you can
spot the lie. And then as they got older, the
Spot the Lie live game, I'm like, OK, we need to take this
farther. And I feel like your, your
podcast, your what you do reallyhelp me take it to the next
level, the junior high, the highschool level.
It's essentially spot the lie. But now what we're doing is why
is it a lie? And where is the truth?
(11:59):
And how, how do we spot the lie?So it was awesome.
And we started what's, what's really cool is we started with
the fallacy detective. And I really liked it, but I
felt like, OK, we need more. And I didn't really care that my
kids memorize. This is just me personally,
memorize the terminology and youmight correct me on that.
And that's OK. But to me it was just more, can
you spot the lie and, and, and that sort of thing.
(12:20):
But then what I did, and I'm just sharing this with families
is we would listen to this was alittle bit of work for me, but I
would go all the way back to thebeginning of your podcast and
you would have say the red herring.
And so we would listen to it andthen they would go to the
fallacy detective and they'd read it the next day.
So we got a couple days of that.One was audio, one was reading,
but then you dove in so much deeper.
(12:41):
And I mean, I'm just going to share a little bit how we use
it. We, we started that way with my
older kids. And now this year it's just
going to be part of our morning basket that we or our circle
time or whatever families want to call it, where we listen to 1
episode together a day during that time.
And then we can discuss it or not, depending on.
And it's just been such AI feel like you did the hard work to
(13:04):
help me launch into teaching my kids this, this skill.
And what I'm learning is I, I kind of already did teach them
this skill. Like, like you were saying,
saying during COVID, what I kepttelling my kids is let's use our
five senses, like instead of thenews, instead of what we're
reading. Like, what do your five senses
tell you in your everyday experience?
(13:25):
How many people? And I'm not trying to go into
COVID too much, but this is justan example of how we, we taught
our kids this. How many people do you know who
actually died of COVID? How many people do you actually
know? Like, what are you seeing with
your eyes? What are you actually
experiencing? You know, when this is happening
or you know, even if everybody'sa terrible person, I'm hearing
that on the news all the time. But then when you go out to the
(13:47):
grocery store, what are you actually experiencing?
Are people really really mean sometimes, but really to teach
our kids that? But I'm just this logic
curriculum. And would you call what you're
doing as a curriculum? OK, so a couple things.
Number one, I love hearing how you're using it.
This is it like you are making my day so much because this is
exactly why I created this podcast It was for so parents
(14:12):
could do exactly this or even hit play when you're running to
soccer practice, like you know what I mean?
So and I wanted to tell you I have a matchup that I have
created between Fallacy Detective and my.
Podcast that would have been nice to know it's.
Free. It's a download.
Filter it through a brain cell dot com forward slash A and
there's a little form you fill out and you can immediately
(14:33):
download it. So that is very because there's
a lot of families that use it inconjunction with that book.
And so I just I made that up so that's available.
So I created it so that it couldbe a curriculum.
Absolutely, because I wanted something to be very easy for
parents because it's intimidating.
A lot of a lot of homeschool parents, they're intimidated by
(14:55):
logic because we didn't get thatin school.
Like this was not a subject thatI got in school.
Most of us didn't. We don't know these weird names
like ad hominem, attack, straw. What is this?
Like, I don't even know what these words mean.
So it was very intimidating. So I thought, if I can make this
really easy and not only easy, but fun, Oh my goodness, that's,
(15:17):
that's a win win. And I don't know, I just love
talking about it. I love teaching it.
I think it's something that really makes a difference.
It's. So cool.
And for me, what I realized withit is as I'm teaching these
things to my kids, one what you've done is you've given me a
launching off spot, right? Because they're short and
they're sweet. But we know that with
homeschool, what the most important thing, more than
(15:37):
curriculum, more than academics,more than anything, is
relationship with our kids. And So what it has allowed me to
do is build a relationship through having the conversations
that not that I would avoid or not know how to have, but that I
wouldn't think to have, right? That I wouldn't really think
because it just hasn't come up. And so it's really, it's it,
it's teaching kids logic. And we're going to take a quick
(15:58):
break in just a second, but, and, and really talk about why,
like really why doing. And we have a little bit, but
teaching logic and, and by listening and then doing it has
really built some incredible relationships with us being able
to talk about it. And then what you do is you have
these joint experiences because we've learned it together.
Then we can, we can spot the lieout in the in the real world
(16:21):
together and it kind of brings us together.
I just loved how it's really bonded us in a lot of ways to
learn this stuff. Yes, I love that.
Because now if you're driving down the road and you look at a
billboard, you can point at it at your kids and say, what do
you think about that? Tell me, tell me what you see
there or a bumper sticker in front of you or, you know,
movies as you're watching movieswith kids.
(16:42):
OK, what what do you think aboutwhat that person just said?
Totally. And because you have learned and
they have learned, you have common language and now you can
talk about it and you can have this conversation and both of
you are learning at the same time.
And they're getting real world application for these things
that they're learning, which to me, that's what it all boils
down to. I don't care if some kid
(17:03):
memorizes like like you said, no, I don't care if you remember
the names of them or not. A lot of times I don't even
remember the names of them. There's over 300 logical
fallacies. It's a lot to remember.
But if you can recognize, I lovethis spot the lie.
If you can recognize the bad thinking when you see it, that
is everything right there. Absolutely, absolutely.
OK. I'm super excited about this
(17:23):
conversation. We need to take a quick break
and then we'll be back and we'regoing to continue to talk about
logic and why it's important to teach our kids.
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bjupresshomeschool.com. OK, we are back with Kathy and
(18:49):
we were just talking about just kind of what she's done with her
podcast, but really the importance of teaching logic to
our kids that they don't just itdoesn't just happen.
They aren't just born with logic.
I mean, I would actually say in a sense they are, but the world
really shoves it out of them. So you were talking about when
you got started in really your deep dive into logic and the
importance of teaching it to kids.
It came from, you know, in that COVID era, but you noticed the
(19:14):
way that those kids in that class were dealing with things
are looking, viewing things versus other kids that aren't
really taught to think and question and ask.
And that leads me to what, what I love and I tell my kids what's
really cool about being followers of Jesus Christ, you
know, having our, our lives rooted in God's word is it's one
(19:34):
of the only religions. Only it's not a religion, it's
truth, it's relationship. But we don't have to be afraid
to ask questions like Jesus that, you know, knock, seek,
ask. We can ask questions.
It's not scary because God knowsit'll always point back to
truth. Now there are two kinds of
asking. I always tell my kids, you know,
1 is the asking of, you know, when, when Mary found out she
(19:58):
was pregnant and was it Zechariah or no?
Zechariah found out Elizabeth was pregnant and didn't, didn't
really believe it was an asking that was a disbelief asking,
right? Like I don't really believe
this. And that didn't go so well.
But then when Mary asked, you know, I remember she, one of the
first things she said is God, how are you going to do this?
And she asked, not like there's no way you can do this, but she
(20:20):
asked with a heart that said, I know you can because you're God,
because there's truth. Because there's reality.
I can't wait to see how you're going to do that, right?
How you're going to do this miracle that you said will
happen. Because we know that God's word
always points back to truth. So we don't have to be afraid of
asking. And I think too many parents are
nervous to tell their kids, question everything, ask
(20:44):
questions. You know, there's that whole
question, everything. You're afraid to tell your kids
that because you're like, they're going to start
questioning me. But what you're saying, and I'd
like you to kind of expound on this, is teaching kids to ask
questions will actually, in the end, bring them back to truth
and give them a more solid truthand understanding and knowledge
of who God is and the reality and truth of who He is.
(21:07):
Yes, OK, I've got two things I want to say about this And, and
oh, you've articulated it so, sowell.
I'll never forget. It was a couple years ago, I was
really challenged by somebody who said that for it to be a
good conversation, you have to come to the conversation willing
to be convinced. And I thought, I don't know
(21:29):
about that. And this was somebody that I
respected. So I it, it made me think about
it because I thought there's some things I'm not willing to
be convinced about. There's some things that I
believe to be true that I'm not willing to be convinced about.
And then what I realized is the when you understand what the
whole point is, what is the goalof having a conversation?
(21:50):
You don't have to be afraid of it.
So this here's the little diagram, the little imagery that
I like to do. And I'm for those of you who are
just listening audio, I'm just got have my 2 pointer fingers
pressing kind of back and forth at each other.
So when you come to something and you're willing to be
convinced, OK, maybe it's something that's very deeply
held. Like there's some things about
my faith that I hold deeply thatI'm probably not going to
(22:12):
change. But if I were to come and talk
to somebody of a different faithor somebody of no faith at all,
if I'm willing to be convinced and to push back and forth, if
the whole goal of a conversationis to buckle toward truth, now I
don't have to be afraid. Yes.
So when you realize that when you're getting in there and
(22:34):
you're wrestling with things andyou're willing to take, OK, this
is what I believe, let me put iton the table, right, and let's
wrestle with it. Let's go back and forth.
If the goal is to buckle toward truth, we don't have to be
afraid, because if the thing that we believe is true, we will
wind up back there. Again, absolutely.
Just like science always points back to truth.
It's just evidence of of God's truth and reality.
(22:57):
I love that. Yes.
And so This is why we can put anything on the table and we can
wrestle with it because the goalis always to find truth and
think about. People are so afraid, but what
if you did because they think? What if I discovered that the
thing that I believe isn't true?Well, wouldn't you want to know
that? Yeah, totally.
Don't we want to know? We don't have to be afraid of
(23:19):
that now because OK, there are probably, I mean, if we think in
our life, over the course of your life life, has there been
anything that you've changed your mind on?
Has there been anything that you've learned something new and
said, Oh, okay, maybe I think about this differently now or
maybe I believe different. Hopefully so, right, There's
none of us has the corner marketon all truth of everything and
(23:41):
ever, ever in the world. Like we don't, I don't think
that that's anything to be proudof when somebody's like, oh,
I've never had to change my mindabout something.
Oh, that's really sad because that means you haven't learned
anything. So we should always be learning.
We should always be growing. We should always be willing to
look at things with the goal of buckling toward truth and
changing our mind if we discover, hey, maybe I didn't
(24:02):
have that quite right or I've learned some new things with
this. Now, the reason that this is so
important is because of what ourkids are gonna see in society
and what they're gonna hear. We are living in a postmodern
world where what we're being told is there is no truth,
right? There's your truth and my.
Truth or truth is truth. And her truth, and it's based on
(24:22):
what you feel and what you thinkto be right, what your gut
feeling is like. What does that even mean?
Right? And it could change and it
probably will change. It could be one truth in the
morning and a different truth that night.
This is what kids are being told.
And so, so, and it's all being packaged in this skin of
emotionalism. Yeah, So it's all based around,
(24:44):
okay, how can I get you emotional?
How it's an appeal to emotion isgonna be the logical fallacy.
But how can I get you to do, think or believe something just
because I can make you feel something?
If I can make you feel guilty? Oh, I can pity, anger, fear.
If I can get you to feel any of those things.
It's like we're LED like a with those big bulls that have a ring
(25:05):
in their nose and you can just lead and wherever you want to
go. If you don't realize, you have
to be asking, well, what's the actual truth behind this?
Because they're going to see these memes, they're going to
see comments, they're going to see arguments from people.
And there's a little bit of truth in it with a whole lot of
lie. And it's sold on a platter of
emotions. And how dare you not be on board
(25:28):
with this shame, shame, shame ifyou're not.
And we have to have kids who canlook at that and say, OK, well,
let's see what they're saying. OK, so this is what they're
saying. This is the argument.
Is that actually true? What's the world view behind it?
Is there any errors in the thinking?
And we want them to wrestle withit and to think about and to
push back and forth and to come to truth, to always buckle up
(25:50):
toward truth. So that's one of the reasons
that I think it's so incredibly important to develop this skill.
Everybody, you know, we're born with the ability to think well,
but we do need to have that trained.
We do need to be taught. And so this is just something
that we can do. And that's why my whole goal is
for parents to know that it can be fun, it can be easy.
(26:12):
It doesn't have to be hard, right?
We can do this. And I say we must do this with
our kids. This is critical to them being
able to withstand anything that they're going to hear in the
world if they have this, becausethink about it, you can either
think, OK, I have to teach my kid every right thing there is
(26:33):
to know about anything ever in the world, right?
Who can do that? You can't.
We can't. It's that's not even impossible,
but if you can teach them to learn and teach them to think
for themselves, to seek truth, now you don't have to worry.
They can do it for themselves. And that is an incredible skill
to have in today's world. Absolutely.
And so to to, to some like this is not a school subject.
(26:56):
I see too many schools where we're going to do logic, you
know, Well, public school doesn't do logic, I don't think.
But even in the private and it'slike, this is not a class.
This is not a subject. This is a life skill.
This is a, I would have to say alife or death skill, right?
Because like you said, you know,there's, it's one little lie
wrapped up in a whole bunch of truths.
And we go back to what God's word says.
(27:16):
And that's the, that's the sheepor the wolf in sheep's clothing,
right? He's not going to come in like a
raging wolf because you'd spotted a mile away.
It's going to be wrapped up in something that probably feels
good or makes sense on the surface.
And so we have to I, and I'll repeat what you said, we have to
teach our kids to ask good questions, to think deeply, to
(27:39):
kind of like strip back the layers.
And like you said, where is thisperson coming from?
What is their angle? What are they, what is their
goal? What are they trying to get me
to believe? Does that make sense?
And, and, you know, there's a lot of fear right now, like this
fear of I don't want to offend someone and because someone will
say, Oh, well, that's so unloving of you.
And for some reason that just makes everybody, it makes
(28:01):
Christians especially feel like,you know, God is love.
And I'm called to love God, loveothers.
And if you're telling me this isunloving, then clearly I need
to, to alter, you know, and pivot and do something
different. But what I've, I've learned a
lot from you and just, and, and doing this is we have to ask
questions about words. And I want you to kind of share
a little bit about that to, to kind of close out this episode.
(28:22):
But one thing I've learned is, well, what is love, right?
What is, what are these words that you're trying to say?
Because your version of love andthe and life's version of love,
like it is very different. So can you kind of take us down
that road is to, to we first of all, we can't be afraid, right?
This whole you're offending me like this is what shuts people
(28:43):
down and causes us to not think and ask questions.
And then manipulation of words. People manipulate words to make
us feel like we can't ask questions.
So can you take that and run with that a little bit?
Yep, that's fantastic. So, and This is why one of the
first fallacies it, well one of the top ten anyways, that I love
teaching kids because they will always get it is it's called
(29:04):
equivocation. So equivocation happens when
somebody changes the meaning of a word in order to try to make
their point point or in order totry to make you feel some kind
of way. So in the example that you gave,
we have to go back to loving. OK, What is the definition of
loving? What and what are they meaning
it to say? Right.
(29:24):
So loving is, as we're taught scripturally is behaving
properly toward another person. Yeah, with their best interest
in mind with that. With their best interest in
truth. In truth, is it really because
who created love? That's the other thing is like
weird who created love? Right.
God of truth, God is love. It is.
Yeah, so. And now what do they mean when
(29:44):
they say they mean total acceptance, and not just
acceptance, but edification of whatever it is that they're
saying that they want to do or should be able to do?
Those are two different things. So if we can teach our kids
equivocation, OK, well, what do they mean by this?
Another one is June is Pride Month, so you'll have a T-shirt
(30:09):
with a rainbow on it and says God's Love Is All inclusive.
OK, well, if you show this to a middle schooler who has been
taught the fallacy of equivocation and say what?
What? What do they mean by the words
there? Look at the words, right?
OK, all inclusive. So all inclusive could mean God
loves everybody, right? It does.
(30:29):
This is true, God does. But is that what they mean?
No, what they're saying is because God loves everybody, his
Love Is All inclusive. Therefore he endorses the things
that everybody is doing. And that's a very different
thing. But if they're not able to think
through the differences there, if they're not even able to
(30:50):
recognize, OK, they've changed the meaning of this word, then
you fall for it and you think, Oh yeah, that's true.
God does love everybody. So.
So people are tricky with words.And that's a big one that we
have to watch out for. And a great way to teach this is
puns. Almost every pun that's out
there comes from equivocation. Somebody changes the meaning of
(31:11):
a word it, you know, in the argument.
So this is a really great way toteach your kids about.
Give us an example of that. It would be oh, but yeah, I
can't think of the there's a Calvin and Hobbes cartoon that I
like and it talks about their a pet, right.
And the one uses it as an example of, you know, we picked
(31:33):
a Peck of apples. And the other one talks about a
kiss on the cheek. Gotcha.
So you. Can find little things like that
just a cute little pun and show it to your kid and now you can
have a conversation about changing the meaning of words
and OK it's cute and funny as a joke, but what if it happens in
this right and and they got it like these kids they get it.
(31:54):
I love it and kids do. That's what I found really
interesting is I think maybe it was harder for us to wrap our
head around because I mean, manyof us because we were
indoctrinated in the system, youknow, but we have we have a
clean slate when we home school.And one thing that I'm hearing
you say too, is one thing that we have to teach our kids in
this, in this art of arguing, I would say is they need to
(32:15):
listen. Because if you just come out of
the gate ready to tell that person they're wrong, they do.
You have to be able to listen and go, where are they coming
from? And I quite frankly, have found
that you can circle someone backto truth without ever like
having to be a bull in a China closet and and make your point
by just asking good questions. If you can ask them really good
(32:39):
questions, they're going to get themselves back to truth.
And then it will probably stick a little more because rather
than me just going, you're wrong.
You know what I mean? Like you're wrong.
Love is not love. You know, you're wrong about
this. People aren't going to hear
that. But if I ask questions and say,
hey, what, what do you mean by love?
Like where? What do you mean by this?
(32:59):
And you ask enough questions. And I think the word that really
comes to me and all of this is humility, right?
If my number one goal is to prove that I'm right, then
that's a very different angle I'm going to take then if my
number one goal is to lead someone to truth, right?
And, and walk away from a conversation where someone is
now walking in truth because good questions were asked,
(33:21):
rather than walking away from a conversation where I'm right,
you're wrong. And now there's all this
division and drama. And I think again, that's what
we saw in 2020 because everybodywas just so, so angry.
And, and when we can ask good questions and we can teach our
kids that questions aren't scaryand that we can ask questions
with the heart of love, love, like my goal is to love you
(33:41):
well. So I don't want you to believe a
lie that's going to harm you anddamage you.
Then we can open up these conversations and have logical
conversations once again amongstpeople.
So I am so sad to say that this week we have to close out, but
we have so much more where this is coming from because I think I
know that teaching logic is crucial.
(34:03):
It's not optional. If we want our kids to be able
to, to sit at the feet of Jesus and walk in his word and stand
against a world and an enemy andtheir flesh that wants them to
believe lies, we have to teach them.
I mean, that is our role. That's our job as parents.
I would, I would dare say beforemath, before Shakespeare,
teaching our kids to think well and how to think is what is
(34:27):
going to produce fruit in their life.
It's what going to it's going tosave them from a lot of really
hard things And, and at the end of the day, it will bring other
people to truth because of it. So, Kathy Gibbons, I am so
thankful that you have listened to the Lord's call in your life
and that you are helping to equip parents to teach their
kids so that maybe we have a generation of logical thinking
once again. And before we close out, can you
(34:50):
tell people where they can find you?
I think I pretty much plugged where everybody can find you,
but can you share once again where we can find you so we can
be encouraged by the work you'redoing?
Absolutely. So the podcast is available on
any podcast player. It's just called filter it
through a brain cell and you candownload it, listen to it.
Season 1 is all about logical fallacy.
Season 2 is all about cognitive biases and then my website is
(35:13):
filter it through a braincell.com and if you go to
slash a you can get the downloadthe match up between the fallacy
detective that we talked about. And if you go to
filteritthroughbraincell.com/quiz,I have a free quiz.
It's got 10 different memes. I love teaching through memes
and things that we see in real life because I feel like this is
(35:34):
this is where the rubber meets the road totally.
And so I have 10 memes on there.You can take it.
You can have your your middle schoolers take it and see if you
can name the fallacy that's happening in each meme.
Oh, I love it all. Right.
And I'm on yeah, I'm on Instagram, filter it through
brain cell Facebook. It's just under Kathy Gibbons on
Facebook, so. I love it.
Filter it through a brain cell. That's what we need to do with
(35:56):
every single thing and through God's word, and I know that you
would agree with that, we're going to filter everything
through God's word and through the brain that he has given us.
So we will be back here next week where we're going to dive
into a little bit more just deeper things about logic and
what happens if we don't and, and all those things.
And then I want to hit next weeka little bit on homeschooling a
single child because that I knowthat we have an audience that is
(36:18):
going to love and be encouraged about that.
So come back here next week. Again, everything that you need
is at schoolhouserock.com. The film.
I mean there is, you would not believe the resources that are
there and all of the past podcast episodes.
What's really cool is you can type in to where in the podcast
page, any guest, any host, any topic and it will bring up every
(36:38):
podcast that's been done on that.
We make it really easy for you to find things.
You can find me at Abby Rinella called To the Top on any social
media and anywhere. So we'd love to hear from you
and we will be back next week. You're listening to the Biblical
family network. Hey, I'm Miki and I'm Will and
(37:00):
we're the Co host of the CultureProof podcast.
We want to invite you to join usevery week as we discuss what's
happening in the world and then filter those happenings through
a decidedly biblical lens. There are many questions,
especially when we see what's happening in our culture today,
but the answers are found withinthe word of God.
So that's where we want to look.Amen.
When we resist those cultural trends that rival the truth, we
(37:23):
remain culture proof. There's no shortage of people
out there who are really excitedto tell you their bad ideas.
There is no stability like Jamestells us, unstable in all his
ways. Well, what are we seeing a a
massive explosion of is mental instability.
People that do not have a solid foundation of truth, you're open
(37:48):
to anything. We're told to take every thought
captive, right? God actually says a lot about
our thinking and it's not passive.
How can we train our kids to love the truth?
Well, it starts with there is truth.
All truth is God's truth. And if we can point them back to
that, then we can teach them, OK, we're going to love truth.
(38:09):
So when you love truth, what does that mean?
What do you do when you love something?
You protect it, you honor it, you esteem it, you value it.
Let's go back and forth. If the goal is to buckle toward
truth, we don't have to be afraid, because if the thing
that we believe is true, we willwind up back there again.
We can put anything on the tableand we can wrestle with it
because the goal is always to find truth.
People are so afraid because they think, what if I discovered
that the thing that I believe isn't true?
Well, wouldn't you want to know that?
(00:22):
Hey everybody, welcome back to the Schoolhouse Rocked podcast.
I am Abby Rinella and I am superexcited to be your host this
week and next with another amazing guest, Kathy Gibbons,
who I cannot wait to share her with you and tell you why I'm so
excited to be here with her. But first, I need to thank our
sponsor, CTC Math for sponsoringthis episode of the Schoolhouse
(00:45):
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(01:08):
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(01:30):
OK Kathy Gibbons, we have been trying to record for several
months now and we are finally here.
And I have to open this up for everybody to know this hilarious
story. So a long time ago I found Kathy
Gibbons and I will explain how. And I called the producers of
this show and said, Oh, my goodness, I have to interview
this woman. I discovered her.
(01:52):
Like, I've discovered this person.
And they are like, OK, Abby, everybody knows Kathy Gibbons.
Like everybody knows Kathy Gibbons.
That would be like, hey, can BenCarson come on the podcast?
Like people know who she is? And I was sort of sad because I
thought, like, I just found the gold in the home school world.
And I was going to be the personthat's like you guys look who I
(02:12):
discovered, but to my I did not know, but everybody knows now.
Kathy Gibbons is actually incredibly well known in the
homeschool community and has actually been on Schoolhouse
Rock podcast before several years ago.
But I discovered her because I'ma homeschool mom and I was
scrolling through stuff to try to teach my kids logic, and I
(02:36):
stumbled upon this incredible podcast called Filter It Through
a Brain Cell. And since that day, Kathy
Gibbons has been in my living room every single morning of my
homeschool because we are using her incredible podcast as part
of our curriculum, which we're going to talk about in a little
bit. So Kathy Gibbons, welcome on
(02:57):
screen. I actually get to see what you
look like in real life, but I'm telling you, I spend every
morning with you, so I'm glad toreally be spending it now with
you. Oh my gosh, Abby, that can I
just tell you how much that makes my day to hear this story
that is so I mean, as a podcaster, I love it.
As a mother, I love it. And just as a fellow
homeschooling mom, like you've made my day.
(03:17):
So thank you so much. I'm so happy to be here.
Well. I appreciate you making my day
to do the hard thing of of helping me to teach my kids
logic. But before we dive into why
that's important and why we're even doing that, will you just
share a little bit about you andyour family and just share with
everybody who you are? Yeah, so I'm Kathy.
I have been a homeschool mom for13 years and my daughter just
(03:42):
graduated. We have homeschooled her since
the very beginning, so K through12 and she just graduated in
May. So it's kind of weird.
I'm in this weird place of, Oh my goodness, now what?
Like, what's next? What are we going to do?
What am I going to do with myself?
But it has been a fantastic journey.
We have loved homeschooling. It has fit our family very, very
(04:04):
well. And I, I just it, it's something
that I love supporting. I love supporting homeschool
families. I love being a part of this
community. And so yeah, I'm super excited
to be here, to be able to. Encourage.
Yeah. So just one daughter.
Wow. We might talk.
I mean, let's see if we have time.
If not, we're going to have to have you come back to talk about
(04:25):
what it's like homeschooling a single.
Right, because. One, a lot of people do that and
two, we're all going to have to at some point when all of our
olders launch, we're all going to be left with 1.
So I did not realize that. Let's I would love to talk a
little bit about that today after we talk about the all
important topic of logic. So your little tagline for a
filter it through a brain cell. Everybody needs to go right now
(04:47):
on their podcast what app, whatever that it is and you need
to subscribe to it. It her little tagline is
teaching what is it not? What?
Tell me in the tagline teaching kids not.
What to think but. How to think.
And I think that that really sums up to me.
That's the tagline for homeschool, right?
We're teaching kids not what to think, but how to think.
(05:08):
And it reminds me of that quote.And I don't know who said it,
but we're not filling buckets, we're lighting fires, right?
But this is The thing is, I always thought that logic was
either like just something that you had, like everybody has
logic, like common sense, right?We have book smart and we have
common sense slash logic. And then 2020 hit and I looked
(05:30):
around the world. I'm like, oh goodness, nobody
really has logic. Like we've lost our ever loving
minds. Like people are not thinking
people are. I mean it it really brought to
light that logic is just not innate.
Like it's not just something that our kids grow up having.
We actually have to be intentional in teaching kids
(05:51):
logic. And so I dove in and I'm like, I
tried all the different logic curriculums.
I tried all the different. And where I struggled is there's
all these terminologies, right? Like the straw man and the red
herring and the and, and my kidswere like, it just became a, a
game of how to memorize the wordand then what part of logic it
was. And then I stumbled upon your
podcast and you do use those terminologies, but what you do
(06:14):
is you make it applicable to real life.
And so one of my questions is, is now that I'm learning like
parents, we have to teach our kids logic.
This is an innate and I want youto share a little bit one about
that. And like, that's, that was a new
discovery to me in 2020. And I'm pretty sure the whole
world figured that out real quick in 2020.
But explain why that is. And then I also want to know
(06:37):
what what inspired in you to go down this road of making logic a
passion and helping us parents to learn it?
Yep, no. So you set me up so well asking
the question about kind of how it got started and also 2020
because that's where it got started.
So the school year 2019-2020 my daughter was in the 7th grade
and I was leading her We were part of classical conversations
(07:01):
so a homeschool We had a little homeschool group where we met
once a week with. She had a class of 12 kids and
one of the part of their curriculum for the second
semester, which would have been 2020, which we all know what
happened in 2020, right? All the craziness.
They had to read this book called the Fallacy Detective and
I was leading the class with them.
(07:22):
And so we went through and it introduces every week.
They learned like one or two newfallacies and then they just had
fun with it. Well, what was so interesting
was watching these kids even just get an introduction to
critical thinking. And I, it was my introduction
too. I hadn't learned this.
I never, I didn't know what logical fallacies were.
(07:42):
I had no idea it was all new to me.
Well, watching these, what are they?
1213 years old? However, the old they are in 7th
grade they picked up on. They learned them so quickly and
what was amazing is watching them navigate that period of
time in our country as compared with their peers.
(08:04):
So watching a presidential debate or any kind of political
debate with a kid who has learned some logical fallacies
is such a different ball game. They were able to pick him out
like that totally. Like, because at that age, you
know, when a kid is in middle school, all they want, it seems
like as the parent, all they want to do is argue, right?
(08:26):
If you say, oh, it's it's noon, what are they going to say?
No, it's not. It's 11:50. 8 Totally, totally,
or even worse, Actually, no, it's 12:00.
Yeah, exactly. Exactly.
All they want to do is argue, but it's because that's what
they're that's where their braindevelopment is.
They are at this place where their brain is developing.
They're wanting to think and they're wanting to, their brain
(08:48):
is wanting to make sense of the world around them.
And it comes out as arguing. And we as parents, we get
annoyed and we're like, don't argue with me.
Don't talk back to me, right? No, if we can change our
perspective on that and say, OK,they are wanting, they're
looking for, right? They are looking to make sense
of the world around them. They are looking for what's true
and how to make sense of what they're seeing.
(09:09):
And if we can, if we can take, take it and look at it a little
bit differently and not be offended that they're arguing
with us, OK, They, they have this natural inclination toward
arguing and rightness and justice.
OK, let's take that and train that and let's teach them how to
quote UN quote, argue and debate, but how to do it well
(09:30):
and how to do it rightly. And so watching these kids, I
had this, I had this thought. I thought, Oh my goodness, if
our whole country just had this ability to think, to think about
what they're seeing and ask the question, is that true?
Are they telling me the truth? Could is there anything else
that's been going on? Am I being manipulated here?
(09:51):
Right. If you could just do that, our
country would be in a very different place than where we're
at right now. And I thought this and watching
these kids how much like they loved it.
It was fun for them. They and they this was one of
the their favorite parts of the day was having fun and they love
to go home and catch their parents committing A logical
(10:12):
fallacy. They loved it.
You know, let's catch these adults saying stuff that doesn't
make sense or that's not true. And so that's what gave me the
heart. Like this can be easy and this
can be fun. Let's give it to these kids
because once they have it, they will always have it.
Once they have the skill to recognize good thinking, bad
thinking, logical fallacies, they will always have it.
(10:33):
And if we can teach them and encourage them to ask questions,
now, we don't have to be afraid of them hearing crazy stuff
because they'll be like, that's crazy.
Right. They'll have it.
Totally. It's so true and you have to be
prepared that once your kids learn this, they're going to
start calling you out because there was one day where I was
saying something and my son's like, mom, that's a red herring.
And I'm like, OK, well, you passed the class, but we're
(10:55):
going to, right? And we just.
They just need to be able. The thing that I always tell
parents when we get to this partis OK, listen, they're going to
they're going to call you out and you need to be able to let
them do that. It's OK, totally, but they have
to be respectful. I love that.
I just love this because when mykids were little, we always
played a game called spot the lie.
(11:16):
And it started with, you know, we we get a really cool book and
it would be like millions of years ago and we would just
start to teach our kids, you know, spot the lie, spot the lie
in the TV show, spot the lie in the book.
And we were never a family. That's like, you cannot, you
know, nothing comes into her house.
It hasn't been is an absolutely truth because we wanted to teach
(11:37):
them, you know what, we can watch this as long as you can
spot the lie. And then as they got older, the
Spot the Lie live game, I'm like, OK, we need to take this
farther. And I feel like your, your
podcast, your what you do reallyhelp me take it to the next
level, the junior high, the highschool level.
It's essentially spot the lie. But now what we're doing is why
is it a lie? And where is the truth?
(11:59):
And how, how do we spot the lie?So it was awesome.
And we started what's, what's really cool is we started with
the fallacy detective. And I really liked it, but I
felt like, OK, we need more. And I didn't really care that my
kids memorize. This is just me personally,
memorize the terminology and youmight correct me on that.
And that's OK. But to me it was just more, can
you spot the lie and, and, and that sort of thing.
(12:20):
But then what I did, and I'm just sharing this with families
is we would listen to this was alittle bit of work for me, but I
would go all the way back to thebeginning of your podcast and
you would have say the red herring.
And so we would listen to it andthen they would go to the
fallacy detective and they'd read it the next day.
So we got a couple days of that.One was audio, one was reading,
but then you dove in so much deeper.
(12:41):
And I mean, I'm just going to share a little bit how we use
it. We, we started that way with my
older kids. And now this year it's just
going to be part of our morning basket that we or our circle
time or whatever families want to call it, where we listen to 1
episode together a day during that time.
And then we can discuss it or not, depending on.
And it's just been such AI feel like you did the hard work to
(13:04):
help me launch into teaching my kids this, this skill.
And what I'm learning is I, I kind of already did teach them
this skill. Like, like you were saying,
saying during COVID, what I kepttelling my kids is let's use our
five senses, like instead of thenews, instead of what we're
reading. Like, what do your five senses
tell you in your everyday experience?
(13:25):
How many people? And I'm not trying to go into
COVID too much, but this is justan example of how we, we taught
our kids this. How many people do you know who
actually died of COVID? How many people do you actually
know? Like, what are you seeing with
your eyes? What are you actually
experiencing? You know, when this is happening
or you know, even if everybody'sa terrible person, I'm hearing
that on the news all the time. But then when you go out to the
(13:47):
grocery store, what are you actually experiencing?
Are people really really mean sometimes, but really to teach
our kids that? But I'm just this logic
curriculum. And would you call what you're
doing as a curriculum? OK, so a couple things.
Number one, I love hearing how you're using it.
This is it like you are making my day so much because this is
exactly why I created this podcast It was for so parents
(14:12):
could do exactly this or even hit play when you're running to
soccer practice, like you know what I mean?
So and I wanted to tell you I have a matchup that I have
created between Fallacy Detective and my.
Podcast that would have been nice to know it's.
Free. It's a download.
Filter it through a brain cell dot com forward slash A and
there's a little form you fill out and you can immediately
(14:33):
download it. So that is very because there's
a lot of families that use it inconjunction with that book.
And so I just I made that up so that's available.
So I created it so that it couldbe a curriculum.
Absolutely, because I wanted something to be very easy for
parents because it's intimidating.
A lot of a lot of homeschool parents, they're intimidated by
(14:55):
logic because we didn't get thatin school.
Like this was not a subject thatI got in school.
Most of us didn't. We don't know these weird names
like ad hominem, attack, straw. What is this?
Like, I don't even know what these words mean.
So it was very intimidating. So I thought, if I can make this
really easy and not only easy, but fun, Oh my goodness, that's,
(15:17):
that's a win win. And I don't know, I just love
talking about it. I love teaching it.
I think it's something that really makes a difference.
It's. So cool.
And for me, what I realized withit is as I'm teaching these
things to my kids, one what you've done is you've given me a
launching off spot, right? Because they're short and
they're sweet. But we know that with
homeschool, what the most important thing, more than
(15:37):
curriculum, more than academics,more than anything, is
relationship with our kids. And So what it has allowed me to
do is build a relationship through having the conversations
that not that I would avoid or not know how to have, but that I
wouldn't think to have, right? That I wouldn't really think
because it just hasn't come up. And so it's really, it's it,
it's teaching kids logic. And we're going to take a quick
(15:58):
break in just a second, but, and, and really talk about why,
like really why doing. And we have a little bit, but
teaching logic and, and by listening and then doing it has
really built some incredible relationships with us being able
to talk about it. And then what you do is you have
these joint experiences because we've learned it together.
Then we can, we can spot the lieout in the in the real world
(16:21):
together and it kind of brings us together.
I just loved how it's really bonded us in a lot of ways to
learn this stuff. Yes, I love that.
Because now if you're driving down the road and you look at a
billboard, you can point at it at your kids and say, what do
you think about that? Tell me, tell me what you see
there or a bumper sticker in front of you or, you know,
movies as you're watching movieswith kids.
(16:42):
OK, what what do you think aboutwhat that person just said?
Totally. And because you have learned and
they have learned, you have common language and now you can
talk about it and you can have this conversation and both of
you are learning at the same time.
And they're getting real world application for these things
that they're learning, which to me, that's what it all boils
down to. I don't care if some kid
(17:03):
memorizes like like you said, no, I don't care if you remember
the names of them or not. A lot of times I don't even
remember the names of them. There's over 300 logical
fallacies. It's a lot to remember.
But if you can recognize, I lovethis spot the lie.
If you can recognize the bad thinking when you see it, that
is everything right there. Absolutely, absolutely.
OK. I'm super excited about this
(17:23):
conversation. We need to take a quick break
and then we'll be back and we'regoing to continue to talk about
logic and why it's important to teach our kids.
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Boot Camp, a free video series that provides practical guidance
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bjupresshomeschool.com. OK, we are back with Kathy and
(18:49):
we were just talking about just kind of what she's done with her
podcast, but really the importance of teaching logic to
our kids that they don't just itdoesn't just happen.
They aren't just born with logic.
I mean, I would actually say in a sense they are, but the world
really shoves it out of them. So you were talking about when
you got started in really your deep dive into logic and the
importance of teaching it to kids.
It came from, you know, in that COVID era, but you noticed the
(19:14):
way that those kids in that class were dealing with things
are looking, viewing things versus other kids that aren't
really taught to think and question and ask.
And that leads me to what, what I love and I tell my kids what's
really cool about being followers of Jesus Christ, you
know, having our, our lives rooted in God's word is it's one
(19:34):
of the only religions. Only it's not a religion, it's
truth, it's relationship. But we don't have to be afraid
to ask questions like Jesus that, you know, knock, seek,
ask. We can ask questions.
It's not scary because God knowsit'll always point back to
truth. Now there are two kinds of
asking. I always tell my kids, you know,
1 is the asking of, you know, when, when Mary found out she
(19:58):
was pregnant and was it Zechariah or no?
Zechariah found out Elizabeth was pregnant and didn't, didn't
really believe it was an asking that was a disbelief asking,
right? Like I don't really believe
this. And that didn't go so well.
But then when Mary asked, you know, I remember she, one of the
first things she said is God, how are you going to do this?
And she asked, not like there's no way you can do this, but she
(20:20):
asked with a heart that said, I know you can because you're God,
because there's truth. Because there's reality.
I can't wait to see how you're going to do that, right?
How you're going to do this miracle that you said will
happen. Because we know that God's word
always points back to truth. So we don't have to be afraid of
asking. And I think too many parents are
nervous to tell their kids, question everything, ask
(20:44):
questions. You know, there's that whole
question, everything. You're afraid to tell your kids
that because you're like, they're going to start
questioning me. But what you're saying, and I'd
like you to kind of expound on this, is teaching kids to ask
questions will actually, in the end, bring them back to truth
and give them a more solid truthand understanding and knowledge
of who God is and the reality and truth of who He is.
(21:07):
Yes, OK, I've got two things I want to say about this And, and
oh, you've articulated it so, sowell.
I'll never forget. It was a couple years ago, I was
really challenged by somebody who said that for it to be a
good conversation, you have to come to the conversation willing
to be convinced. And I thought, I don't know
(21:29):
about that. And this was somebody that I
respected. So I it, it made me think about
it because I thought there's some things I'm not willing to
be convinced about. There's some things that I
believe to be true that I'm not willing to be convinced about.
And then what I realized is the when you understand what the
whole point is, what is the goalof having a conversation?
(21:50):
You don't have to be afraid of it.
So this here's the little diagram, the little imagery that
I like to do. And I'm for those of you who are
just listening audio, I'm just got have my 2 pointer fingers
pressing kind of back and forth at each other.
So when you come to something and you're willing to be
convinced, OK, maybe it's something that's very deeply
held. Like there's some things about
my faith that I hold deeply thatI'm probably not going to
(22:12):
change. But if I were to come and talk
to somebody of a different faithor somebody of no faith at all,
if I'm willing to be convinced and to push back and forth, if
the whole goal of a conversationis to buckle toward truth, now I
don't have to be afraid. Yes.
So when you realize that when you're getting in there and
(22:34):
you're wrestling with things andyou're willing to take, OK, this
is what I believe, let me put iton the table, right, and let's
wrestle with it. Let's go back and forth.
If the goal is to buckle toward truth, we don't have to be
afraid, because if the thing that we believe is true, we will
wind up back there. Again, absolutely.
Just like science always points back to truth.
It's just evidence of of God's truth and reality.
(22:57):
I love that. Yes.
And so This is why we can put anything on the table and we can
wrestle with it because the goalis always to find truth and
think about. People are so afraid, but what
if you did because they think? What if I discovered that the
thing that I believe isn't true?Well, wouldn't you want to know
that? Yeah, totally.
Don't we want to know? We don't have to be afraid of
(23:19):
that now because OK, there are probably, I mean, if we think in
our life, over the course of your life life, has there been
anything that you've changed your mind on?
Has there been anything that you've learned something new and
said, Oh, okay, maybe I think about this differently now or
maybe I believe different. Hopefully so, right, There's
none of us has the corner marketon all truth of everything and
(23:41):
ever, ever in the world. Like we don't, I don't think
that that's anything to be proudof when somebody's like, oh,
I've never had to change my mindabout something.
Oh, that's really sad because that means you haven't learned
anything. So we should always be learning.
We should always be growing. We should always be willing to
look at things with the goal of buckling toward truth and
changing our mind if we discover, hey, maybe I didn't
(24:02):
have that quite right or I've learned some new things with
this. Now, the reason that this is so
important is because of what ourkids are gonna see in society
and what they're gonna hear. We are living in a postmodern
world where what we're being told is there is no truth,
right? There's your truth and my.
Truth or truth is truth. And her truth, and it's based on
(24:22):
what you feel and what you thinkto be right, what your gut
feeling is like. What does that even mean?
Right? And it could change and it
probably will change. It could be one truth in the
morning and a different truth that night.
This is what kids are being told.
And so, so, and it's all being packaged in this skin of
emotionalism. Yeah, So it's all based around,
(24:44):
okay, how can I get you emotional?
How it's an appeal to emotion isgonna be the logical fallacy.
But how can I get you to do, think or believe something just
because I can make you feel something?
If I can make you feel guilty? Oh, I can pity, anger, fear.
If I can get you to feel any of those things.
It's like we're LED like a with those big bulls that have a ring
(25:05):
in their nose and you can just lead and wherever you want to
go. If you don't realize, you have
to be asking, well, what's the actual truth behind this?
Because they're going to see these memes, they're going to
see comments, they're going to see arguments from people.
And there's a little bit of truth in it with a whole lot of
lie. And it's sold on a platter of
emotions. And how dare you not be on board
(25:28):
with this shame, shame, shame ifyou're not.
And we have to have kids who canlook at that and say, OK, well,
let's see what they're saying. OK, so this is what they're
saying. This is the argument.
Is that actually true? What's the world view behind it?
Is there any errors in the thinking?
And we want them to wrestle withit and to think about and to
push back and forth and to come to truth, to always buckle up
(25:50):
toward truth. So that's one of the reasons
that I think it's so incredibly important to develop this skill.
Everybody, you know, we're born with the ability to think well,
but we do need to have that trained.
We do need to be taught. And so this is just something
that we can do. And that's why my whole goal is
for parents to know that it can be fun, it can be easy.
(26:12):
It doesn't have to be hard, right?
We can do this. And I say we must do this with
our kids. This is critical to them being
able to withstand anything that they're going to hear in the
world if they have this, becausethink about it, you can either
think, OK, I have to teach my kid every right thing there is
(26:33):
to know about anything ever in the world, right?
Who can do that? You can't.
We can't. It's that's not even impossible,
but if you can teach them to learn and teach them to think
for themselves, to seek truth, now you don't have to worry.
They can do it for themselves. And that is an incredible skill
to have in today's world. Absolutely.
And so to to, to some like this is not a school subject.
(26:56):
I see too many schools where we're going to do logic, you
know, Well, public school doesn't do logic, I don't think.
But even in the private and it'slike, this is not a class.
This is not a subject. This is a life skill.
This is a, I would have to say alife or death skill, right?
Because like you said, you know,there's, it's one little lie
wrapped up in a whole bunch of truths.
And we go back to what God's word says.
(27:16):
And that's the, that's the sheepor the wolf in sheep's clothing,
right? He's not going to come in like a
raging wolf because you'd spotted a mile away.
It's going to be wrapped up in something that probably feels
good or makes sense on the surface.
And so we have to I, and I'll repeat what you said, we have to
teach our kids to ask good questions, to think deeply, to
(27:39):
kind of like strip back the layers.
And like you said, where is thisperson coming from?
What is their angle? What are they, what is their
goal? What are they trying to get me
to believe? Does that make sense?
And, and, you know, there's a lot of fear right now, like this
fear of I don't want to offend someone and because someone will
say, Oh, well, that's so unloving of you.
And for some reason that just makes everybody, it makes
(28:01):
Christians especially feel like,you know, God is love.
And I'm called to love God, loveothers.
And if you're telling me this isunloving, then clearly I need
to, to alter, you know, and pivot and do something
different. But what I've, I've learned a
lot from you and just, and, and doing this is we have to ask
questions about words. And I want you to kind of share
a little bit about that to, to kind of close out this episode.
(28:22):
But one thing I've learned is, well, what is love, right?
What is, what are these words that you're trying to say?
Because your version of love andthe and life's version of love,
like it is very different. So can you kind of take us down
that road is to, to we first of all, we can't be afraid, right?
This whole you're offending me like this is what shuts people
(28:43):
down and causes us to not think and ask questions.
And then manipulation of words. People manipulate words to make
us feel like we can't ask questions.
So can you take that and run with that a little bit?
Yep, that's fantastic. So, and This is why one of the
first fallacies it, well one of the top ten anyways, that I love
teaching kids because they will always get it is it's called
(29:04):
equivocation. So equivocation happens when
somebody changes the meaning of a word in order to try to make
their point point or in order totry to make you feel some kind
of way. So in the example that you gave,
we have to go back to loving. OK, What is the definition of
loving? What and what are they meaning
it to say? Right.
(29:24):
So loving is, as we're taught scripturally is behaving
properly toward another person. Yeah, with their best interest
in mind with that. With their best interest in
truth. In truth, is it really because
who created love? That's the other thing is like
weird who created love? Right.
God of truth, God is love. It is.
Yeah, so. And now what do they mean when
(29:44):
they say they mean total acceptance, and not just
acceptance, but edification of whatever it is that they're
saying that they want to do or should be able to do?
Those are two different things. So if we can teach our kids
equivocation, OK, well, what do they mean by this?
Another one is June is Pride Month, so you'll have a T-shirt
(30:09):
with a rainbow on it and says God's Love Is All inclusive.
OK, well, if you show this to a middle schooler who has been
taught the fallacy of equivocation and say what?
What? What do they mean by the words
there? Look at the words, right?
OK, all inclusive. So all inclusive could mean God
loves everybody, right? It does.
(30:29):
This is true, God does. But is that what they mean?
No, what they're saying is because God loves everybody, his
Love Is All inclusive. Therefore he endorses the things
that everybody is doing. And that's a very different
thing. But if they're not able to think
through the differences there, if they're not even able to
(30:50):
recognize, OK, they've changed the meaning of this word, then
you fall for it and you think, Oh yeah, that's true.
God does love everybody. So.
So people are tricky with words.And that's a big one that we
have to watch out for. And a great way to teach this is
puns. Almost every pun that's out
there comes from equivocation. Somebody changes the meaning of
(31:11):
a word it, you know, in the argument.
So this is a really great way toteach your kids about.
Give us an example of that. It would be oh, but yeah, I
can't think of the there's a Calvin and Hobbes cartoon that I
like and it talks about their a pet, right.
And the one uses it as an example of, you know, we picked
(31:33):
a Peck of apples. And the other one talks about a
kiss on the cheek. Gotcha.
So you. Can find little things like that
just a cute little pun and show it to your kid and now you can
have a conversation about changing the meaning of words
and OK it's cute and funny as a joke, but what if it happens in
this right and and they got it like these kids they get it.
(31:54):
I love it and kids do. That's what I found really
interesting is I think maybe it was harder for us to wrap our
head around because I mean, manyof us because we were
indoctrinated in the system, youknow, but we have we have a
clean slate when we home school.And one thing that I'm hearing
you say too, is one thing that we have to teach our kids in
this, in this art of arguing, I would say is they need to
(32:15):
listen. Because if you just come out of
the gate ready to tell that person they're wrong, they do.
You have to be able to listen and go, where are they coming
from? And I quite frankly, have found
that you can circle someone backto truth without ever like
having to be a bull in a China closet and and make your point
by just asking good questions. If you can ask them really good
(32:39):
questions, they're going to get themselves back to truth.
And then it will probably stick a little more because rather
than me just going, you're wrong.
You know what I mean? Like you're wrong.
Love is not love. You know, you're wrong about
this. People aren't going to hear
that. But if I ask questions and say,
hey, what, what do you mean by love?
Like where? What do you mean by this?
(32:59):
And you ask enough questions. And I think the word that really
comes to me and all of this is humility, right?
If my number one goal is to prove that I'm right, then
that's a very different angle I'm going to take then if my
number one goal is to lead someone to truth, right?
And, and walk away from a conversation where someone is
now walking in truth because good questions were asked,
(33:21):
rather than walking away from a conversation where I'm right,
you're wrong. And now there's all this
division and drama. And I think again, that's what
we saw in 2020 because everybodywas just so, so angry.
And, and when we can ask good questions and we can teach our
kids that questions aren't scaryand that we can ask questions
with the heart of love, love, like my goal is to love you
(33:41):
well. So I don't want you to believe a
lie that's going to harm you anddamage you.
Then we can open up these conversations and have logical
conversations once again amongstpeople.
So I am so sad to say that this week we have to close out, but
we have so much more where this is coming from because I think I
know that teaching logic is crucial.
(34:03):
It's not optional. If we want our kids to be able
to, to sit at the feet of Jesus and walk in his word and stand
against a world and an enemy andtheir flesh that wants them to
believe lies, we have to teach them.
I mean, that is our role. That's our job as parents.
I would, I would dare say beforemath, before Shakespeare,
teaching our kids to think well and how to think is what is
(34:27):
going to produce fruit in their life.
It's what going to it's going tosave them from a lot of really
hard things And, and at the end of the day, it will bring other
people to truth because of it. So, Kathy Gibbons, I am so
thankful that you have listened to the Lord's call in your life
and that you are helping to equip parents to teach their
kids so that maybe we have a generation of logical thinking
once again. And before we close out, can you
(34:50):
tell people where they can find you?
I think I pretty much plugged where everybody can find you,
but can you share once again where we can find you so we can
be encouraged by the work you'redoing?
Absolutely. So the podcast is available on
any podcast player. It's just called filter it
through a brain cell and you candownload it, listen to it.
Season 1 is all about logical fallacy.
Season 2 is all about cognitive biases and then my website is
(35:13):
filter it through a braincell.com and if you go to
slash a you can get the downloadthe match up between the fallacy
detective that we talked about. And if you go to
filteritthroughbraincell.com/quiz,I have a free quiz.
It's got 10 different memes. I love teaching through memes
and things that we see in real life because I feel like this is
(35:34):
this is where the rubber meets the road totally.
And so I have 10 memes on there.You can take it.
You can have your your middle schoolers take it and see if you
can name the fallacy that's happening in each meme.
Oh, I love it all. Right.
And I'm on yeah, I'm on Instagram, filter it through
brain cell Facebook. It's just under Kathy Gibbons on
Facebook, so. I love it.
Filter it through a brain cell. That's what we need to do with
(35:56):
every single thing and through God's word, and I know that you
would agree with that, we're going to filter everything
through God's word and through the brain that he has given us.
So we will be back here next week where we're going to dive
into a little bit more just deeper things about logic and
what happens if we don't and, and all those things.
And then I want to hit next weeka little bit on homeschooling a
single child because that I knowthat we have an audience that is
(36:18):
going to love and be encouraged about that.
So come back here next week. Again, everything that you need
is at schoolhouserock.com. The film.
I mean there is, you would not believe the resources that are
there and all of the past podcast episodes.
What's really cool is you can type in to where in the podcast
page, any guest, any host, any topic and it will bring up every
(36:38):
podcast that's been done on that.
We make it really easy for you to find things.
You can find me at Abby Rinella called To the Top on any social
media and anywhere. So we'd love to hear from you
and we will be back next week. You're listening to the Biblical
family network. Hey, I'm Miki and I'm Will and
(37:00):
we're the Co host of the CultureProof podcast.
We want to invite you to join usevery week as we discuss what's
happening in the world and then filter those happenings through
a decidedly biblical lens. There are many questions,
especially when we see what's happening in our culture today,
but the answers are found withinthe word of God.
So that's where we want to look.Amen.
When we resist those cultural trends that rival the truth, we
(37:23):
remain culture proof. There's no shortage of people
out there who are really excitedto tell you their bad ideas.
There is no stability like Jamestells us, unstable in all his
ways. Well, what are we seeing a a
massive explosion of is mental instability.
People that do not have a solid foundation of truth, you're open
(37:48):
to anything. We're told to take every thought
captive, right? God actually says a lot about
our thinking and it's not passive.
How can we train our kids to love the truth?
Well, it starts with there is truth.
All truth is God's truth. And if we can point them back to
that, then we can teach them, OK, we're going to love truth.
(38:09):
So when you love truth, what does that mean?
What do you do when you love something?
You protect it, you honor it, you esteem it, you value it.
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