May 20, 2024
Interview with Rae
Blue Orchard Bee Resource
Transcript
A long-standing goal at the Blue Orchard Bee is to improve the accessibility of our resources for all of our listeners and readers. This year will are working toward this goal by republishing some of your favorite episodes with new, fully edited transcripts. Originally from the Spring 2022 series, we're re-releasing this interview with Rae with this new and fully-edited transcript. In this interview, Danielle and Rae discuss how a Charlotte Mason education benefited her as a neurodivergent learner.
Disclaimer
The following video is a product of the Blue Orchard Bee and the Charlotte Mason Institute who hold a copyright. You are encouraged to share this file with your friends, family, and colleagues. Do not republish this information in any format, including electronic or digital, without permission from the Charlotte Mason Institute. Ideas suggested in these files do not necessarily reflect the views of the Blue Orchard Bee or the Charlotte Mason Institute. Information provided here is not to be perceived or construed as professional advice in matters of mental health. You are encouraged to work closely with a mental health professional provider that meets your needs.
Intro
The Blue Orchard Bee is adding an additional video for this term, which ends at the end of June. Danielle last week interviewed Rae Scarbrough and they enjoyed a conversation about morality. In part two of that interview, Rae shares what she thinks about Mason, about her beautiful relationship with her mom, and how she encounters life and challenges now that she is an adult. Let's join their conversation.
Interview
Danielle: So, how about if you just start by telling us a little bit about yourself and kind of what you're interested in right now, what's kind of bringing you joy?
Rae: Yeah, so I am Rae, I'm 23, I just turned 23, and I just got married a little bit over a year ago. And I guess kind of my main interests are art and history, so I'm looking to go back to school for art history, and I really love that. So, art is something that I've always loved and I really enjoy, in art and in literature, just the way that culture shapes movements through history and cultural events.
So, whether that's a war or a famine even will shape our cultural landscape. I'm just going to go back and learn about that, learn about art history, and then looking forward to maybe working in a museum, so I can educate other people, or working in a college or library, some environment like that. But I really, I think for a lot of people art, especially modern art, feels very inaccessible and feels very alienating. But it's not and you don't need to feel like that and so I definitely am excited to help bring that to people and help people love it as much as I do, as much as I can. And because, like with my parents, I've taken them to the Art Institute in Chicago and I've taken them to museums in New York, and they definitely have gotten an appreciation of modern art that they didn't have before so that's something that's very encouraging to me and very fun for me to help people understand and help people not feel so alienated from, you know, like the pretentious art world.
And I work at a coffee shop right now, so that's really fun. I love making drinks. I love making food. So, that's very fun for me. And yeah, that's me.
Danielle: Great. Can you reflect a little bit back on, kind of when you were growing up - and this can be about anything in particular, any kind of settings or interactions that really just kind of stand out in your mind and think about some of those things that we were talking about that might, might cause, might have caused some friction, just kind of, you know, with the person that you are and how those impacted you.
Rae: Yeah, so I academics for me like is a fairly strong suit and I didn't struggle a ton with academics because I was at home with my mom. But I think some of the things that I did struggle with were socially, kind of like, initiating friend groups, initiating friendships within groups, and just reaching out to people. So, I've always had awesome friends, but making that first connection is difficult.
That's not something that I've necessarily grown past. Like, that's something that's still certainly a struggle for me. But, being an adult, being married, I definitely can ask for help with that. And I ask my spouse to help me with that. I have outgoing friends who can help me make that connection. And it doesn't feel hard. It doesn't feel, like I don't feel sad that that's a struggle for me, but it's not necessarily something that I have, don't struggle with anymore.
But I think some of the things that I did struggle with were socially, kind of like, initiating friend groups, initiating friendships within groups, and just reaching out to people. So, I've always had awesome friends, but making that first connection is difficult.
Danielle: It's just part of who we are. So, do you feel like that impacted you most at church or were you, did you do a co-op, or kind of how - what kind of setting?
Rae: Well, both. I would say, at church and in my like theater and dance groups, when it's a large group of people that you're kind of entering into and you don't know anyone and you're just trying to find someone to be friends or you're like entering like the lunch room and you have to figure out who to sit with and who to initiate the conversation with, that's just a huge struggle and if I was put in that situation again today that would still be a huge struggle for me. I think that's probably the hardest thing.
Danielle: Yeah, they're kind of overwhelming. There's no structure. It's just this free for all, kind of.
Rae: Totally. Yeah.
Danielle: So, thinking about when you were at home and you were schooling with your mom, what aspects of Mason and what you know about Mason-philosophy do you think were most helpful to help you, you know flourish in that setting.
Rae: Yeah, so I think because it was fairly unstructured, there definitely were benefits for me from a sensory aspect, so I was able to - if my mom was like reading out loud to us, I would be able to do other things while she was reading to us. And that was like really helpful for me, so I would cook maybe or crochet while she was reading out loud, or if it was a reading that I was doing on my own, I would maybe stretch because I was a dancer, so I would stretch or do some type of movement while I was reading and having that freedom to move around and do other things really helped me learn. And just definitely that. I don't know. Yeah, that was helpful. The other thing that was certainly helpful was being able to just pursue my specific interests.
So, I was definitely able to pursue art and literature, which is something that I was very interested in and that made me enjoy learning because I wasn't being forced into doing STEM or something that wasn't my strong suit. And so once I did get to those areas, I already liked learning and I already enjoyed that, so those things weren't as hard for me to do because I had a positive association with learning. And then I think that one of the most helpful things was just - my mother putting trust in me and treating me and my siblings as people - I mean children are people.
The other thing that was certainly helpful was being able to just pursue my specific interests.
And being in school, I've had a lot of friends, whether that was in public school or private school, who kind of were given the material and we're told 'This is the meaning you need to take from this. This is what you need to be learning.' And it's very structured. It's very systematic. And I was given the material and taught how to find meaning from that and I was taught how to pull that out. But I was trusted to find that out for myself. And today my mom and I don't agree on anything, we don't agree on a lot of stuff politically or religion-wise, but she respects me and she respects me as a person to be a good person and to have good opinions and that feels really good. And that felt really good as a teenager to know how to do that and to be able to do that.
