i'm an academic. >> public or private? >> public. we moved to the good public schools, the good ones in california, which is, you know, last in the nation or second to the last in the nation. the whole school experience, i looked at entire school experience. the fact that my son was going to be a very good bully, he was awesome, you've met him, he's very powerful he can get anybody to do anything. he's very persuasive and he was in second-- in first grade, all the fifth graders knew his name. like he was on his way, and i didn't like the attitude that he was coming home with. so, it wasn't just the academics, it was sort of the whole package. i was like, i'm not sure that this is the best thing. ... one day and the the teacher telling me, oh, it was so great because he sat next to my very misbehaved child. and i was hoping that he would rub off on the misbehaved child and it worked. and i'm like, not his job.

like, i want to hear that he's asking too many questions and he's so excit i want to hear he's asking too many questions come very so excited about learning. and so i realized basically their focus was child, was behavior management. my focus was academic selectivity out. my next two did kindergarten in the public school and then i took them out. i thought it's a p preschool, is like a playskool kindergarten, going to be fun, half-day, bill have a good time. it wasn't to my daughter was 166 that she said to me, mom, i think i realize now where i learned where i i was stupid. kindergarten. so they were doing sight word reading in front of the class which is probably the worst thing they could possibly have done to my very shy little girl, put in front of the class and tester. she didn't perform as well as she had wanted. they laughed at her.

and i tell you like the scenario, unsure was i picked her up ander teacher said so cu. the class laughed. it's like okay, maybe go over wordss more with her so she does better next time. i didn't think a thing of it and it took ten years for her to come to grips with the fact she's not stupid because she's brilliant. she just doesn't do thingss the way the rest of the world does. she doesn't think the way the rest of the world does. her thoughts are different and fascinating and brilliant, and all the time that i was trying to tell her how clever she was, and i would, she would say things unappealing hold on, i need to write that down. that's how smart they were. waysoc of thinking that i don't, but i don't process, process that way. she thought iou was lying to her because she went to kindergarten. that's what i tell her don't

send you join other people who don't know. even if no them like be a little bit reticent about it because you just don't know what they're going to say that could damage your child, and he'll do enough damage to her child yourself. don't let someone t else into tt mix. do you know whatli a mean? like,. >> what you say to parents who may not have the resources to homeschool their children pgh >> yes. that is literally the question. . and the reason that i say that and that's why i wrote this book, the parent's guide to homeschooling is you need to think about education differently than it being school. you don't need the time that you think you need to do this. you don't need the money that you think you need. because the schools have like vast resources, they're always claiming that they don't have enough. right. you don't need those resources for you to educate your child. so a plumber who runs his own business, he thinks, well, i can't give my child the math that my child needs. well, how much math do you need? you run your own business and

you're successful. let's just look at that for just a minute. do you think that you're being successful in the world and running your own business is? not more of an education for a child than the girl who's 22 who just graduated the marxist teaching college and knows about classroom management because that's her. parents have so much more to offer their children in terms of education than the school does and all the answers are in the books. what's another hint that you give to parents? oh, that's a good question. it's it's easier than you thought it would be. and it's more rewarding than you ever dreamed it could. it's it's so much better. it's like going from black and white to technicolor when you when you start the education process of your children yourself, because you start to realize how much you have to offer them. and that's fine.

i mean, if you have ever taught child to tie his shoe and then he titus and he was so proud and you were proud and it was like this, right? you get to have that every day with your kids and think, i can't manage. my children. well, that's because they go to school. so they've learned that you won't manage them because you offload them to the school every day. so parents think that we as a culture we think teenagers. rebell that's just like a given that that we've accepted as a culture. i say no. i say that's a product of the schools that come between child and the parent that that our an alternate authority figure. so the child gets confused and goes well if i obey this authority, do i have to obey this authority? so don't let another authority figure come between you and your child. it's really i mean, i the the big secret is it's called parenting. it. we shouldn't call it school. we shouldn't do school. we should do education. education is parenting.

parenting is the education of the child's sam sorbo. were you working while homeschooling children? yeah. how did that go for? how do you manage that? well like i said, it's not a full time job. it's it's a full time job in the sense that it's 24, seven. but the actual effort of the school work and i overdid it was less than 3 hours a day for me, for three kids. and yeah, maybe some nights you have to give up your nights because you need to grade that paper. you need to read that essay and tell kid what he did wrong. yes, but i would forego drinks with the girls to spend time with my children every every night of the week. i mean, you make the what they call sacrifices you make those concessions because on the on flip side, what you get as a product that is beyond your wildest dreams. that's that's really the biggest sort of thing. this whole thing is schools are

not better than homeschooling. and the proof is there. the homeschoolers score better academically. they do better socially. they, they that's why harvard recruits home schoolers, yale's recruiting homeschoolers, businesses are recruiting homeschooled kids over graduates. and if you have a mass i just heard this yesterday here if you have a master's degree that's like the kiss death for a business to hire because you've been taught to think inside the box. you've been institutionalized for too long. and there's like, we can't we can't fix that. but a homeschool child is somebody typically who thinks outside the box. they're much freer, they're problem solvers. and they and they get things done themselves. they're do it yourselfers because. the other thing about, educating the child is when you buy the textbooks and you set the child up with the textbook, you very quickly learn that you teach the child to read the chapter first before trying to answer questions, because all the

answers are in the chapter. and so the kids then, oh, so i can teach myself i'll have to do is read the book. and so then you have self learners they're they're autodidact because they, they go oh well i really want to learn about you know combustion, engines, then they go to the library, they get the combustion engine book and they learn all about combustion engines. and so it's, it's a completely different paradigm. whereas in school they're, they're basically taught or trained to hate learning because it's so industrialized, it's so mechanized that loses its allure. it's it's, oh, you're, you're, you're reading really good book and put that down 10:00 time to do math. so stop doing the thing that you're enjoying doing. do the thing that you don't really want to do right now because there's no leeway in school, because it has to be. and that's just that's the nature of school. that's why i say i just say it's not better than homeschool because it can't be because that's the nature of school. was your husband kevin sorbo,

involved in the. yes. he taught my schooling. that's what he says. yes, because he was very much in the raising of the children. and so he would take them on trips with him. they would work for him. so that was training. that's education. you know what, you start to realize is that everything is educational for a child because they know nothing. and so then it's fun everything just becomes about getting the child up to speed and the child loves it. that's what want. and, you know, children want to be their parents until their parents things that make them not want to be their parents, maybe like send them away to school or not talk to them because the are busy on their phones or. right but initially children just want be and they want to be adults. so them to be adults don't send them to an environment where they just have to be a child. the day we infantilize children in our schools, is there an

association, an informal or formal of home schooling? yes, several. several. you just it. how did you use it? i joined classical conversation lines. i actually advocate for them. i'm not a paid spokesperson or anything, but i do love their program. they open the world of classical education. to me, i quite like it. it's rigorous, it's academic but it does produce critical thinkers. it does produce in the children the ability to to weigh things and, try to understand both sides and. you know, we've very much lost that in our culture because our schools don't teach that our. schools teach tolerance, but not the idea of discernment. that's just everything. don't discern. that's the sort of the the overarching lesson in our schools. and so yeah, so classical conversation but there are plenty there are state organizations for homeschooling in every state and there are

groups that just together for park days just to have fun and there's lots of different ways. yeah. what's the reaction of your children now that they're young adults to being home state? they they mourn for other children who have to go to school. they are staunch. all of them are like, okay, kids all want to have kids right now? they're 22, 20 and 18, and they want to homeschool because so my oldest son is 22, he wants to have eight children. he wants to homeschool them. the reason that he sees that as a goal is he understands that raising a child is the ultimate fulfillment of being a man, being the parent of a child is is the fulfillment of manliness to him. and so, yeah, they they've they're they're fully indoctrinated. it. but it's the truth.

so, you know, i, i don't regret stepping away from my career for my kids. i don't regret it in fact, i, i'm sad women who are proud to have done things against their children in order to have the the awards and the accolades because that's not what's going to make your life because that's not what's going to make your life full. and tucker carlson talks about this. children.having wealth is having family, having relationship. r we are a relational being and we have squandered that i did because schools have taught us that wealth is money and go for the money. sacrifice anything to get the good job, the high paying job, the, the fancy car. and then we reach an age and we go okay, i have all that stuff but i'm not happy.al why am i not happy? that type of wealth doesn't make you happy thehe dinner with famy

makes you happy. >> sam sorbo, her latest book, "parents' guide to homeschool" " thanks for spending a few minutes with us on booktv. >> thanks so much. appreciate you. >> on your screen is alexandra hudson, her new book is called "the soul of civility" ." alexandra hudson, where did your interest in civility come from? >> i interest in civility has been lifelong and quite adamant. 's this international expert on manners and etiquette, and she's dedicated to the social project. and as i learned while writing this book, my mother is actually one of four women who are international experts on manners and etiquette, named judy. my mother is just one of four. the most famous is probably miss manners. judith martin, the washington post comments. but my mother, judy the manners lady, is my favorite of these.

judith's in the in the courtesy and she taught my brothers and i you know to mind our p's and q's. and i always questioned them. you know, i always wondered, why do we do things the way we do them? and i hungered for kind of a moral and philosophical underpinnings for our our our social norms and expectations. but i generally followed them and they served me well because my mother said they would lead to success and work in school and life. and she was right until i found myself in federal government. i served in washington, d.c., 17 to 2018 and there everything i thought to be true about the utility of the rules of politeness was questioned. well, in fact, in your book, the soul of civility, you write, when i moved to washington, d.c., and took a job in politics, my confidence in politeness was shaken. i discovered that those who survived and succeeded in washington often did so using two tactics punishing, ruthless meanness or extreme politeness. that's exactly right.

so those that these are the two extremes that i've observed and experienced when i was in d.c., in federal government. but these are two extremes that also define our body politic and public discourse writ large today as well. and i realized, you know, i thought i saw people on one hand who were hostile. they were bellicose, they were belligerent. they knew what they wanted. and they used, you know, violence to get their, you know, emotional, you know, social violence to get there. on the other hand, there were people at first i thought they were my people. they were polished and poised and but these were people who would smile and flatter me and others. one moment and then stab us in the back the next. and that really perplexed me. that scared me. and at first i thought these were polar opposites, but i realized they're actually two sides of the same coin. these modes, extreme hostility and extreme politeness, because both have an insufficiently high view of the dignity and beauty of the human person, that they're hostile contingencies,

others as pawns to be steamrolled and silenced into submission and bully to submission, whereas the polite contingencies others as pawns to be manipulated, used and discarded, but neither have a sufficiently high view of what we owe other human beings, just by virtue of our shared common humanity. and that's what led me to realize this essential distinction between civility and, politeness, who were you working for at the time? i was at the united states department of education with secretary davos, going back to the soul of civility, democracy depends on civility. you write major thinkers in world history, from confucius to buddha, aristotle to jesus christ, muhammad and beyond, all cited human selfishness as the cost of as the of suffering and social discord. they did this because they were astute observers of. the human experience, civility

and selfishness. so where i'm honest about my priors in the book, in the introduction, i talk about my christian faith. i talk about how i am a classical liberal. you know, we're here at freedomfest. there's a reason i'm here. i'm on the main stage today and really thrilled to be here. but there's also a remarkable content quality across religious, philosophical ethical, cultural traditions is about the timeless principles that help us flourish, even when we deeply disagree. that's what my book is about. how do we how do we peacefully coexist amidst competing visions of the good which is the essential question of our moment, especially as we head, we are amidst very divisive 24, 23, four presidential election cycle. and what i found was there is kind of a singular cause with this is a timeless problem. yes, we feel that there is a problem with incivility right now, but actually every era has felt that they are the most uncivil moment. and so what my book does is look to other times, other places, other, other, other wisdom,

traditions to say how can we revive these timeless principles of civility, of selflessness, of overcoming our baser instincts and helping us flourish across difference today? and what did you find? well, i found that, you know, human nature doesn't change. we are the same today as we were at the dawn of our species and humans in all times, in all places have been defined by two competing forces. love of others and love of self were profound we socially become fully human and relationship with others and yet morally and biologically, we're driven to meet our own needs before others. and those two facets of who we are are intention. this is the timeless problem, the timeless challenge to civility and to flourishing with others across time and across place. but just as timeless is the solution. and the solution, as i discovered is civility, which is the art of human flourishing. it's the bare minimum of respect that we are owed and owe to others by virtue of our shared

humanity. it is more than mere politeness. it is more than just going to the that the rituals of etiquette and manners and propriety. it's not it's not just the technique of politeness, the outward form of goodness and virtue. civility is an inner disposition of the heart. it's a way of seeing others as our moral equals who are worthy of a bare minimum of respect, just by virtue of us all being human. and that crucially, sometimes respects someone, someone sometimes actually loving someone requires telling them that you think they're wrong, requires disagreeing with them being impolite, telling a hard truth, engaging in robust debate. and i still feel i said too often today we are content settling for your politeness. the appearance of virtue and niceness and respect and tolerance. but we fail to actually respect people when we when we hold back, we feel that actually we actually respect ourselves, when we hold back and don't speak up when we have things to say.

alexandra hudson one of those timeless principles is when it comes to disagreeing with somebody politically, how would you approach it? well, one thing i would do, and this is something i address in my and my final chapter on misplaced meaning and forgiveness. i do talk about how curiosity is an underrated superpower of the 21st century. we live in this age of categorical, more uncertainty where we think we know every thing about someone based on one aspect of who they are. their opinion on one thing, who they voted for. this there's one election cycle and we use that as a heuristic to say, okay, i know this one thing about you, therefore i know everything about you, and therefore i either want you in my life or i don't. and instead of that sort of categorical black or white thinking, what what might it mean to curious and say, you know, recognize that every single one of us is infinitely complex. we come to our views about the world for many different reasons. and what does it look like to be curious about those reasons instead of saying, you know,

this is your view on the vaccine. this is your view on donald trump. i know everything about you and some saying, you know, that's so interesting. you have that opinion. tell me more. how did you come to that opinion? that is an underrated curiosity, staying open and curious and not just assuming we know everything about someone based on one aspect of who they are. another thing that i think could be very helpful, especially in our all and composing 20, 20, 2024 presidential election cycle is actually counter-intuitively talking about politics less. i argue in my book that we've actually as a society and many of us as citizens have made idols, quasi religions out of politics and political views. as these traditional touchstones of meaning, such as, say, family, community, have been on the decline in recent decades. people have found their meaning. not in these, not in these entities, but in politics. and political, political candidates, political issues. and there are three symptoms i see of this misplaced me in this

crisis of misplaced meaning that is detrimental to our democracy and ourselves. one is the way in which people can go from 0 to 60. you know, peaceful and fine to apoplectic at the just the mere mention of an issue, you know you've you've you've flicked their sacred cow, treated something they care deeply about insufficient insufficient deference and they go insane. and that's a symptom of a lizard brain being activated. and they're put into fight or flight because you have you've, you know, aggravated the core aspect of who they are when you see that, you see that that's a symptom of someone who has misplaced their core identity, their core meaning in a political issue and in politics. a second symptom is the equity of politics. it is everywhere all the time. previously apolitical venues of life. you know, sports where we grocery shop, where we go, where we send our kids to school, where we live now. everything has a political dimension to it in ways that that didn't that wasn't the case a few years ago. and that is, again, bad for democracy.

bad for ourselves. if we're overdoing democracy and we're undermining democracy as a result, we need a break from it. and a third symptom is the tragedy of this misplaced meaning and the crisis of it is the tragic number of people who have ended friendships or family relationships over politics and political disagreement. you know, again, these these hot button controversial issues, they realize there's a rift in the relationship. they say, i can't our disagreement the relationship. and instead of seeing that difference in the context of a 20, 30 year relationship or a lifelong friendship, they say, that's all i need to know. i can't have you in my life anymore. that's that's a symptom vastly disordered love. that's not how it should be. so we need to actually save seeing it's saving democracy means doing democracy less, you know, making it making it work, covering things in our lives that that give us joy in life. like, like beauty and the sublime and curiosity and actually cultivating friendship across difference. and we're again, we were overjoyed.

democracy and undermining our democracy as a result. you write in your book the soul of civility, and you work in the trump administration. donald trump's ascendance to the pinnacle of american public life was a stressor in our nation's and our world's problem with incivility. it's a great point. you know, early drafts of my book did not mention donald trump once. i didn't want to mention donald trump in my book. my book is not a political tell all that it does, not its purpose. i. i left government after a deeply despondent, disillusioning experience because i desperately yearned to be part of the solution that i wanted my work to be a tool of reconciliation and healing and dialog across difference. and i did not want i knew that it meant mentioning trump. that's all people would go to. that's all they would. they would. that was their worst shark test, right? like they were going to judge my whole book on how i treated trump. so i didn't i, i didn't even mention him. and then i was persuaded to at least have this one paragraph about him.

and what i say is there's no that donald trump coarsened our public life, no question. but it is a misguided assessment to say that he caused our problem in civility. i show that throughout the book. i show that, you know, the oldest book in the world written 2350 b.c for millennia ago is book on civility, right? people have been grappling with this question of how do we peacefully coexist for a very long time? and if we misdiagnose the problem and misdiagnosing, oh, donald trump's the problem the moment he is gone, we're going to be perplexed because. there's still going to be a civility problem, you know? yes. new episode, dominance like, you know, controversial public figures or new technologies, new things in our in our world, new trends will always cause stress and it will contribute to incivility. but to say that they cause it is misguided and wrong. you have now moved to indianapolis from d.c. what were you doing prior to joining the education department? i was in local education policy

in milwaukee, wisconsin. i did my i'm a history and philosophy undergrad. i love intellectual history. i love i love i love storytelling. but i wanted my work to be i wanted to understand how ideas could help people. so i did my master's in public policy at the london school of economics. and after that, i got married and moved to milwaukee, wisconsin, with my new husband, who was clerking for a federal judge there. and i was at a local think tank there doing education policy. and it was my big break to move to d.c. and be offered this post in that in the federal government, it was my chance to take i'm fresh out of grad school, fresh out of undergrad, where i had these platonic of of what ideas that could make america's education better. and then i was just so disillusioned while i was in government to see how little actually could be done and how little i could do. well, do you see a difference between d.c. and indianapolis when it comes to civility? it's a great question. i remember the day very clearly.

it was fall of 2017. it was maybe, you know, nine or ten months into my tenure in federal government. and i came home one day and said to my husband, who's from indiana originally, i said, i'm done with washington. i'm done with d.c. and with politics in the swamp. let's move to indiana. it was my idea to move there. and he said, we've always talked about one day moving there to be close to his family and to have children there. and he said, okay, sounds good. we'll move to indiana. no take backs and a few months we were out there and when i first moved out there, actually, i took a job in government once again in the governor's office. and i you know, in my mind, in that transition, i was escaping the swamp, the toxicity, the the political angling. and it was i was i was moving to kind of pastoral, blissful rolling hills of the american midwest. that was my vision. that's what i thought i was getting into. and what i realized is the human condition is the human condition. it doesn't matter the time, the

place, the geography, the locale, whether it's politics in indiana, politics dc, the same dynamics exist. human nature is the same. there are still going to be the back biters, the people who are, you know, angling for for power and success. and so i actually didn't last long in indiana politics, but i realized it was actually much the same that i just fled from in government. so after i sailed out of that second and fled that second job and indiana, my husband finally said, okay you know, you can focus on this book. and that's where i really threw myself into it. but but you i indiana did teach me a lot about civility. i one of my first friends in indiana, her name was joanna taft. she came up to me after church one day and said hi, i'm joanna taft. would you like to work with us time. and i never heard the word port she used as a verb before. but i was curious and we went to her home that day and i realized is that joanna is staging a quiet revolution against. our atomized, divided and

alienated status quo from the vantage point of her great front veranda, she created people across politics, across geography, race, just to inhabit a shared space and that is radical in our deeply divided and deeply siloed moment and as i wrote this book, i realized there are people across the country hundreds, thousands, the same thing they're saying, i can't. who is going to win in 2024? i can't control what's happening down down the road city hall, but i can control myself. and i'm going to choose to make my sphere of influence a better and beautiful place. the book is called the soul of civility timely principles to heal society and ourselves. the author alexandrait's and ons helen raleigh. she is the author of this book, the broken welcome mat america's un-american immigration policy. helen raleigh you have a chapter

at the beginning of the book called foundation of our national identity. why do you go back to luther and the founding of the country? when you talk about immigration? well, i think very important because we always talk about as a country of immigrants. and i think many people misunderstand that as what does that mean? and some argue, oh, we're not so i think it's very important to talk about something because america, to a immigrant like me, means so much more. it's not a just a country. we come, make a living, raise our family. it's a country we represent the ideal. i know that's kind of is now very popular nowadays, but it's actually it's mean something to especially people like me live in a i grew up in this very tourism so that's the regime that's why i think it's important to go back to see america's founding. it's not just a group of people. right. that ruled on the mayflower here. they brought