Christine Smith

Homeschool podcast.
Coming Home; Survive and Thrive in Homeschooling
resources and speaking

[Christine Smith @ComingHomeNZ]

https://t.co/PjRW6KdjPu
My second interview on Bitcoin. This time, the cautionary approach.

[Classic Learning Test @CLT_Exam]

A student who is never challenged never develops discipline.

A student who is never required to memorize never develops mental endurance.

A student who is never asked to wrestle with difficult ideas never develops wisdom.

The goal of education is not comfort, but growth.

[Monetary Metals @Monetary_Metals]

Markets have been saying the same thing since 2021.

Rates are going back down.

Jeff Snider explains why the data already confirms it.

"The yield curve, when it inverted in March 2022, however high rates were going to get in the short run, they're going to eventually go lower."

The two-year Treasury went up to 5%. It's already down 140 basis points.

It still has a long way to go.

The 10-year sitting at 4.30-4.40 implies short-term rates around 2.20-2.30.

"Interest rate swaps have been saying short-term rates are going to go down a lot. And they're going to stay there a very long time."

The yield curve isn't predicting this.

It's already showing it.

[Christine Smith @ComingHomeNZ]

AI should be secondary in learning. Here is evidence of what I think is common sense

[Rimsha Bhardwaj @heyrimsha]

A Wharton economist ran a randomized controlled trial on almost a thousand high school students in Turkey.

The result was so brutal for the AI-in-education narrative that it had to be peer-reviewed by PNAS before people would believe it.

Her name is Hamsa Bastani. She teaches operations and information at the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania, and the study she published in 2025 alongside her co-authors is one of the cleanest experiments anyone has run on what AI actually does to learning when you remove it from the equation and check what is left.

The setup was a randomized controlled trial, the same methodology used in clinical drug trials. Nearly a thousand high school math students in Turkey were split into three groups and put through four sessions of ninety minutes each. One group practiced with GPT Base, a standard ChatGPT-4 interface that could answer any question directly. One group practiced with GPT Tutor, a version of the same model that had been prompted to guide students with hints rather than hand them the answer. One group practiced with nothing but their textbook and their own head.

During the practice sessions, the AI groups looked like a miracle. The GPT Base group solved 48% more problems than the students working alone. The GPT Tutor group solved 127% more. Every administrator looking at those numbers would have written a press release about the transformative power of AI in education and moved on.

Then the actual exam came, and AI was not allowed.

The students who had practiced with GPT Base scored 17% worse than the students who had practiced alone. Seventeen percent worse, despite having solved nearly half again as many problems in the sessions leading up to it. The students who had struggled the most, who had sat with the confusion and worked through it without a tool to rescue them, were now the only ones who could actually do the math when it counted.

Bastani's team read through the chat logs to understand what had actually been happening during the practice sessions, and the answer was exactly what the exam results had already implied. The GPT Base group had not been learning. They had been extracting answers and moving on, and every moment that felt like understanding was actually the model doing the cognitive work while the student's brain waited for the next problem to arrive. The paper describes it precisely: without guardrails, students attempt to use GPT-4 as a crutch during practice, and subsequently perform worse on their own.

The detail that should follow every conversation about AI in education is the one buried in the post-test survey results. The students who had relied on AI the most during practice were also the most confident they had understood the material. The tool had not just failed to teach them. It had convinced them they had learned something they had not, which is a different kind of failure entirely and a much harder one to correct because the student has no idea it is happening.

The crutch had made them confident and weak at the same time.

[Christine Smith @ComingHomeNZ]

It's a simple and easy thing to do; so simple it feels like cheating, but no. Just smart, very smart

[Classic Learning Test @CLT_Exam]

Research data from 160,000 adults in 31 countries concludes that a sizeable home library gave teens skills equivalent to university graduates.

Build a home library.

[Christine Smith @ComingHomeNZ]

https://t.co/oCz0KgZxqF
An interview with Efrat Fenigson: an introduction to Bitcoin for homeschoolers and other interested folk.
The how, what and why of Bitcoin. Also, CBDC, other crypto currencies and gold feature in the discussion.
@YoureTheVoiceEF

[Christine Smith @ComingHomeNZ]

@WestonAPrice Is it necessary to take butter oil with Cod Liver Oil if butter and eggs (both organic) are included every day? Also, is it necessary to take the CLO at the same time as my egg and buttered toast? Thank you

[Christine Smith @ComingHomeNZ]

Nothing to add...

[Athenaeum Book Club @athenaeumbc]

Did you know C.S. Lewis predicted the modern obsession with “being nice” would destroy the soul?

In The Abolition of Man, Lewis argues that when a society stops believing in objective virtue, it doesn’t become tolerant… it becomes manipulable.

He calls the result “men without chests.”

People with appetites and intellects, but no courage, no honor, no trained moral instincts. They can calculate everything and defend nothing.

Lewis saw that once we reject inherited moral law, we don’t become free. We become raw material… easily shaped by propaganda, pleasure, and fear.

Modern man prides himself on compassion while quietly surrendering every standard that once gave compassion meaning.

Lewis’s insight is brutal: a civilization that educates clever cowards will eventually be ruled by tyrants or technicians.

Because when nothing is worth dying for, everything becomes negotiable… including human dignity.

[Christine Smith @ComingHomeNZ]

Good idea!

[Homeschool Life LLC | Jonathan Prescott @Homeschool_LLC]

What ever happened to Finishing Schools for young women?

Manners, Etiquette, Elegance, Poise, Personal Development, Life Skills, building confidence, and knowledge of polite society.

[Christine Smith @ComingHomeNZ]

@HelenHoughtonC This 5th gen kiwi agrees with you, Helen

[Christine Smith @ComingHomeNZ]

@NMowbray23 That is a privilege, indeed! He's been on my Hero List since his stand on the coof jab. Bravo!

[Christine Smith @ComingHomeNZ]

The child will have no trouble reading; in his time

[Giga Based Dad @GigaBasedDad]

Based parenting

[Christine Smith @ComingHomeNZ]

@NMowbray23 Well done, Zuru! Impressive!

[Christine Smith @ComingHomeNZ]

@Homeschool_LLC Including the wolves in sheep's clothing. Special training is required for this

[Christine Smith @ComingHomeNZ]

A sad and avoidable hell, @LauraRosenCohen A cruel thing for children to have been parented like this

[Laura Rosen Cohen 🪬 🐿️ 🚚 @LauraRosenCohen]

What kind of fresh hell is this?!?!? 😵‍💫😵‍💫😵‍💫

[Christine Smith @ComingHomeNZ]

@Homeschool_LLC It's ignorance. How is putting your children in a state school based and run on cultural Marxism not isolating your children from all that is important?

[Christine Smith @ComingHomeNZ]

@Homeschool_LLC Tate's quote is like saying "It doesn't matter what your child eats as long as he's eating." Well...duh!

[Christine Smith @ComingHomeNZ]

@efenigson @efenigson Efrat, are you coming to New Zealand, too? I can help you over here!

[Christine Smith @ComingHomeNZ]

Think this way about your children, grandchildren and their great, great grandchildren. Whether or not you homeschool, start thinking this way; it changes everything!

[The Culturist @the_culturist_]

What mindset built the Old World?

This mindset:

[Christine Smith @ComingHomeNZ]

@Homeschool_LLC Try a 30 Day Declutter Challenge. Start with one thing a day. Just start! I did this and recorded my items and how I responded to some long-held beliefs. On Instagram declutternz