Charlie Robinson (00:01.329)
Well, it's my pleasure to welcome Brett Pike to the show from Classical Learner. Brett, what's cookin'? How are you, man? Good to see you again.

Brett Pike - Classical Learner (00:10.016)
Yeah, I'm doing great. Thanks for having me here.

you, Richard, and the crew last time,

Charlie Robinson (00:19.003)
Yeah, it made sense. looking back on that, Richard had that organized and I was just kind of filling in as a summer guest host. And I was unfamiliar with you and your work until that interview. And then while we were doing it, I was looking up online and I was like, my God, I got to talk to this guy like immediately because what you're doing is so important. It really kind of overlaps with what

I've been talking about for a few years now. You I thought I was gonna talk about conspiracies and it was gonna be tin foil hat woo woo stuff. And you know what the conspiracy has been? I've talked to more farmers and more homeschoolers in the last couple of years than I ever thought I would. And it's just been the real solution to all of this is to recognize that

that you can just do things totally differently and it's okay. And my understanding of the school system has changed so much in the last few years. And so I'm glad Richard put that interview together and I understand why he had you on there. It's such a fit with what they're doing with autonomy. But can we start kind of from the beginning? Like how did you, like what was your path to getting into this homeschooling industry?

Brett Pike - Classical Learner (01:45.985)
Yeah, and you kind of hit the nail on the head there because that's how you know that we're winning. That's how you know we're in this mass awakening because for a few years, if you went back about a decade, it was a lot of people complaining about what the mainstream media was doing. But now what you're seeing is people homesteading, people homeschooling. And what you're seeing is people's response and the formulation of a plan to actually win. And you can't win unless you have a good plan.

You know, if we went back to the COVID days, because to me that was one of the most important times in my life because it was such a teachable moment. It was the emperor with no clothing. It showed what the system really was. And I had a few incidents where I'm with my family. I'm in New York. So we're in one of the most tyrannical states. And I go to a farmer's market and this crazy guy

tries to start a physical confrontation with me while I'm with my kids because I don't have a mask. Go figure the logic on that. I hope I breathed all over his face, but you know, that's crazy behavior. And that was the norm everywhere I went. Cause I don't, I don't do tyranny. I had people yelling at me. I had all types of incidents, but I started, it started to really make me strong because it's one thing to know you have your rights and it's another thing to learn how to defend them. So you can go to

November of 2020, it's election day and I go to vote and I'm waiting on a line in New York. So you can imagine how many people were there, thousands of people. And the line is snaking around a parking lot at a country club. And I'm the only one in the line without a mask on. So the guy comes up to me and he says, sir, if you want to be on this line, you have to have a mask on. I said, okay. So I took out my phone. I started recording him and I said,

Are you violating my right to vote? And it was like, uh, I asked you a question. Are you violating my right to vote? Are you saying that if I don't wear what you want me to wear, then I'm not allowed to vote. And he started talking about COVID. And I said that, well, you know what? I don't wear a mask for health reasons. Now, if he was smarter, he would have picked up semantically that I didn't say medical reasons. Cause I would never make a false claim. I don't wear it for health reasons because I don't believe wearing a mask is good for my health. I didn't tell him that.

Brett Pike - Classical Learner (04:11.212)
So I said, are you a doctor? Are you qualified? Can you legally as a government official start asking me what's going on with my health? And he went and got his supervisor and they tried to intimidate me and ultimately they backed down. And then they used the same tactics that you always see during COVID. They said, okay, well, if we can't use authority, we'll use social pressure. So they come to me and say, all right, sir, you're right. We can't make you wear a mask, but if you don't put on a mask,

then when you get to the front of this line, we're going to have to empty out the entire building and this entire line of people, this entire line of people is going to have to sit. I mean, move my dogs for a second. Guys, stop it. Calm down.

Brett Pike - Classical Learner (05:01.454)
Unless there's a man here to shoot me, which is always a possibility, I want him. Alright.

Charlie Robinson (05:05.497)
It's possible these days. We never can put that by us.

Brett Pike - Classical Learner (05:09.334)
Yeah

Charlie Robinson (05:13.939)
So did you, so Jim.

Brett Pike - Classical Learner (05:14.574)
So anyway, so I'm at the front of the, so they say, when you get to the front of the line, we're going to have to clear out this entire building and you're going to have to wait at the front of the line. Everyone's going to have to wait for you. And he thought this would intimidate me in some way. And I just looked at him and I said, well, that's on you partner. Do what you got to do. And I was nervous at this point. So I get to the front of the line and I'm like sweating bullets because there are

Charlie Robinson (05:35.763)
You

Brett Pike - Classical Learner (05:41.4)
hundreds or thousands of people behind me and they can see what the holdup is. And they cleared this building out for 40 consecutive minutes and I'm sitting there sweating and the most amazing thing happened. And it showed what happens when someone stands up because even though I looked like the naked guy, you know, you could see my face. Everyone else had a mask on and I think that was part of the psychological warfare. It was amazing how many people in the crowd actually agreed with me and the people behind me in the crowd were the line.

started yelling at the election officials to just let them go vote. What's the big deal? And that was a real relief to me. But as I went through the whole COVID thing, I had a lot of incidents like that. And it taught me that if we're going to win, we have to build and we have to take control. Because I saw that one, they were using financial leverage over people where they were basically telling them, look, you're not essential. You can't work your job. Well, my job is essential to my life. My job is essential to

my family, my job is essential to the mortgage that I have to pay the bank. And you as the government might not think me getting my house foreclosed on is essential, but if people aren't able to work, that could happen to them. By the way, that didn't happen to me. was fortunate. I was doing very well at the time and I was able to keep working, but I saw how they were leveraging that over people. And then they also leverage the grocery store where they said, okay, well, everyone has to eat.

So if you want to eat, then you better put on a mask, otherwise you can't go into Trader Joe's. And that taught me one, that you never let them get you in debt, because debt is a means of control and leverage, and you never let them control you with food. So we sold our house, we moved across the country, we homestead. The house I'm in now, as you see, I was able to get fortunate, because I did well in my young life, that I was able to get debt free, but we lived within our means rather than the biggest.

you know, baddest thing we can get. And as I did that, I started to build out. Originally, I had already written the Cubs to Bears book series on free speech, the Second Amendment, that type of thing. But I said, OK, let's let's escalate now. And I was selling books and that was nice and all. But I said, I could build, I could turn this into something that really changes the world, something big. And we started the Classical Learner Education Company. And through there, it started with just

Brett Pike - Classical Learner (08:05.527)
some live classes I was teaching and some unit studies. And now I have staff of people, have a whole staff of people, teachers, curriculum developers, other people who do things within the company that I pay now. And it's so funny because when I first started out with it, it was to just help the kids. And that was my mission. And we have educated tens of thousands of young people. And then as you start to do that and you have to grow as an organization now,

Charlie Robinson (08:25.744)
Mm-hmm.

Brett Pike - Classical Learner (08:34.881)
I see I have all these people who are dependent on me to do a good job. So now I have all of these employees and contractors that in my opinion, I'm just as responsible for as the kids, but it shows that when you build, you start to become powerful and those people, those employees, they won't have to worry the next time there's a pandemic. I won't ever make them wear a mask. I won't ever make them get a vaccine. I won't ever make them do any of the things that the system would make them do.

And that's really my message to people that when you see something wrong with the system, if you just complain, it's like another football team hatching out a whole game plan and you complaining about their game plan, you have to make a game plan. And if you do that, you start to score touchdowns and you start to grow more powerful and the people around you start to grow more powerful. And I've lived that I've experienced that. And now we're educating thousands of children and

Charlie Robinson (09:19.111)
Yes.

Brett Pike - Classical Learner (09:34.229)
I have people that are really good people that I'm responsible for and everyone could do this in whatever their field of expertise is and their line of work. And it just takes a little shift in mindset.

Charlie Robinson (09:49.713)
Well, I, of all the hilarious things Terrence McKenna has said over the years, one of his greatest quotes was a simple one. He just said, if you don't have a plan, you become part of somebody else's plan. And we saw what happens when you allow somebody else to plan for you.

over 2020. So this idea of being self sufficient and resilient, and then taking control of our own behavior moving forward. I think there was a real shift during COVID. I mean, you either got with the program and you were in the down on the reservation with COVID with your masks and your shots, or you were an outcast in experiencing isolation and segregation and the herd turning on you in some cases, it's the first time people have ever felt this.

sort of societal pressure, like, Hey, we'll close down the entire voting place. You know, if you want to do what you want to do, you're like, Whoa, like I've never experienced this. How did you handle that from a psychological standpoint? Apparently some people crumple. Clearly you took this as a challenge that they're not going to keep you down. So what was your mindset in COVID? Did you notice like a switch?

Brett Pike - Classical Learner (10:42.573)
what people want to do. Like, whoa, I thought you had your experiences. How do people handle that from a psychological standpoint? Apparently, some people struggle. Clearly, most of them think that's a problem. So, I'm sure many people in this group think that's a glitch. But, let's enter the time.

Charlie Robinson (11:01.138)
that got flipped in you and you just went, I'm not participating in this or was it kind of gradual over time? Did the bullshit kind of build and then finally snap or how was it for you?

Brett Pike - Classical Learner (11:07.757)
Yeah, you know, I would love to frame myself as the ultimate fearless warrior, but the truth is that it was a major test and it was very difficult, but I viewed it as I was the leader of my family, that it was my job to follow God. And then through there, it was my job to lead my wife and to lead my children. And I couldn't show that fear otherwise.

they would be consumed by it. So I decided early on that I wasn't going to allow that to happen. And I wouldn't wear the mask anywhere or anything like that. And when I went in public, I would routinely get verbally attacked by people who were very aggressive and very angry. And I really, I think as that went on, I started to develop almost an anxiety disorder because I would feel that anxiety building up on me. We're like, I know what's going to happen.

and I would get in these altercations and I'd feel my heart racing. But I just kind of started using a little monstrous at the time. And what I would say when that happened is I would just say to myself, as I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I shall fear no evil. And I reminded myself that Jesus was with me. And through that, I just held my ground, whether it was against doctors, whether it was against election officials, whether it was against just crazy people that you encounter in the street.

It wasn't easy. was something that was really hard. And to me, it's something I look back at with great fondness because it's trials and tribulations that teach you about yourself. It's adversity that teaches you about who you are. And what I learned and what a lot of people learned is that they can be faced with all the authority and all of the social pressure in the world. And they won't back down from that.

And there is something incredibly powerful about knowing that about yourself.

Charlie Robinson (13:07.987)
Yeah, it was a real gut check for people, for organizations. saw who, you know, the mask came off for a lot of musicians. We saw how they truly felt about things. It was, it was unveiling for a lot of people. One of the aspects.

was the use of the government stranglehold on compulsory schooling. And we saw them use this as a tool to destroy children, I mean, physically destroy them by wearing masks at young ages and disconnecting that important learning that they're developing in terms of reading body language, facial features and things like that. That was all a catastrophe. But then...

Randy Weingarten in the school boards, in the unions, playing victim and pretending like they were going to die if students came back to school. We watched this disgusting. And there could not have been a greater advertisement for homeschooling, for unschooling, for coming at the education problem from a totally different direction. So COVID kicks off. People are trying to figure out

Brett Pike - Classical Learner (14:18.412)
Thanks a lot for trying to out where we see what we've got.

Charlie Robinson (14:19.558)
What are we doing? We've got masks. We've got Zoom schools. We've got all kinds of things. We've got kids sitting at desks with plexiglass built. You know, all kinds of imaginative insanity going on. Just a perfect opportunity for homeschooling. What was your relationship with COVID in conjunction to the way you see the...

Brett Pike - Classical Learner (14:30.476)
We'll take more time to put it back

Charlie Robinson (14:45.67)
the schooling system, was this a, was it a combination of sadness mixed with opportunity, like the danger and opportunity Chinese symbol, right? That's a little of both, like the schooling is definitely a catastrophe, but what an opportunity for us to do something better.

Brett Pike - Classical Learner (15:03.341)
Yeah, for me it was really another instant of the Emperor has no clothes. And at the time I had started writing the books and I already knew that I was going to be homeschooling at the time. I just had my son now we have more and I knew that I would be homeschooling him and I had known for a few years that I would never enter him or my kids into that system because I came through that system and I was educated to be a teacher and I understood

what it was. So anyway, I started doing consultations and I was working one-on-one with families, basically setting up their homeschools and showing them how I would educate their child if they were mine. So I already kind of had a foot in the door of that. And once everyone could see what it was, it was just a very natural transition to

Okay, people see what it is. I'm going to escalate now. And I really, I really declared a silent war with the school system itself. And I've spent the last few years just relentlessly attempting to expose what it is. And you would be amazed by how many people I meet, not just on the internet in real life that I meet that come up to me and tell me, thank you. showed me what the school system was. You're the reason that I homeschool and

To me, that gives me so much purpose and it shows me what I'm doing is correct. And I know that instinctively, I know that I could feel that from God. to me, it's just, you you kind of get thrust into situations where you have the right life arc and it's the right time and it's the right moment. And for me, it's my moment and we are going to fundamentally transform education.

I'm going to do it privately in the private sector and we'll do it with how we individually educate children. And then through that competition, we'll either force the public school system to improve on what they're doing to compete. Otherwise they're just going to continue to fall further behind and further behind and further behind. So either way it's on them. If they want to shut me down, all they have to do is be better themselves.

Charlie Robinson (17:26.929)
Well, you had me at a kid's book that you wrote titled The Bear from Jekyll Island. I mean, if that isn't perfect, I don't know what is. mean, can we talk about the Cubs to Bears series and how that all kind of came about and why that's just such a nice entry into learning about all the things that we think that the children actually need to understand about the way the world works?

Brett Pike - Classical Learner (17:58.046)
Yeah, well I started going through my awakening in, I don't know, like 2015-ish, and I started to wake up to a lot of the things that were going on in the world. It was the food system first, because my sister started being really weird, and she told me that she was a vegan, and I thought it was all just preposterous, her dietary changes, and I'm not promoting veganism per se, like I'm a carnivore, but...

The point is, she, at the time, I thought it was outrageous. And she starts telling me these things. And I respected my sister enough where I said, okay, well let me look into the things you're talking about. I didn't just want to blow her off. And I, my whole life was very passionate about history. So was good at getting back to documents. And what I found was the things she was saying about the problems with the food system were very accurate. And

It really woke me up to, well, there's some big problems with the things that we're eating and like, why didn't we hear about this with the food pyramid? Why wasn't I taught this in school? Like this is fundamental. Why would they not be educating us on what's really going on with our food of all things? It affects everyone. So I started being open minded and then a buddy of mine came up to me and I was talking to him and he said, yeah, well,

I know you have your degree in history, but most of the history you know is nonsense. And he was like, you should listen to this guy, Richard Grove. And he has this peace revolution podcast. And I told him, I was like, Richard Grove is an idiot and I'll show you he's an idiot. So anyway, three days later, after binging Richard Grove and going through a lot of primary documents, I went back to my friend and I was like, I am in fact, I'm the idiot. so anyway, I started to wake up to the historical stuff, which I found.

Charlie Robinson (19:28.307)
Yeah.

Brett Pike - Classical Learner (19:49.094)
super fascinating because that's always what I loved. So I just started listening to people like Richard Grove and, and really looking for anyone who was giving alternatives to what I understood. And the powerful thing about waking up about waking up to Richard Grove was he was talking about things like intellectual self-defense, something that I have borrowed from him, but I do always credit him for. And this idea that you should filter out

information in your brain, like an antiviral system. And you have to have logic and identify logical fallacies and get back to primary sources and only accept as true what you're able to prove to yourself, not because you heard anything. And this was wonderful. And I started to really listen to anyone who was giving alternative stories. And I came across a lot of things that maybe weren't accurate and a lot of things that I was able to prove to myself that I found to be accurate. And

Then I became a father and I was at the time when you first wake up and you don't know how to see people and be calm and not be crazy. I was screaming it from the mountaintops. Don't you see what's going on? And you know, your normie family who hasn't woken up to anything. They're like, okay, Brett's off, know, Brett's losing it here. So at the time I was very concerned about all this. I was like, my children, my son is going to know this stuff from the time he's little.

Charlie Robinson (20:56.467)
Yeah.

I'm back.

Brett Pike - Classical Learner (21:17.611)
So I thought, how can I do that? I said, I'll write books. I'll write books for him. And I started writing the Comes to Bears book series about free speech and how censorship works, about the Second Amendment and why it's important, about Operation Mockingbird and the Church Committee, about the CIA bribing media and how that all works, about the Fed, the creature from Jekyll Island, my book, The Bear from Jekyll Island, which is for children and a tribute to G.E. Edgar Griffin.

I wrote two books about the food system. You are what you eat and you are what you eat part two, the GMO square down, not to be confused with any other shapes or directions. So anyway, I wrote these books and for my children in mind and they have countless children now, tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands of children have read these books and they're helping parents teach the things that

they should know and not to do a shameless plug but since we're on the topic books.classicallearner.com Charlie you also have an affiliate link I believe because I do have a partner program so if you get it click on Charlie's link and do it that way because if I'm getting paid for something and Charlie's getting paid for it and your children are being educated in what is good what is true and what is beautiful then it's a win-win-win-win and ultimately that's how we

Charlie Robinson (22:20.966)
Let's talk.

Charlie Robinson (22:25.575)
You. Macro. Yep.

Brett Pike - Classical Learner (22:44.191)
grow as a community, need to support each other and we need to promote truth and we need to help each other and create resources to make it easy as possible to do that.

Charlie Robinson (22:55.107)
I agree, man. I'm a collaborator, not a competitor. I feel like all this stuff, when it comes to educating your kids, can't, you know, cut out the state, of course, but get a variety of sources here. I just had Doug Casey on, we talked about his new book, The Preparation that he wrote with Matt Smith and Matt's son, Maxim Smith. And this was a re-imagination of college. Instead of the four years, they broke it down into 16, three month sections and sent him off to...

Thailand to learn how to do be a Muay Thai fighter and to Joel Saliton's farm to be a farmer intern into Europe to learn how to be a chef and the Fairbanks to learn how to fly a plane and all of the things that he learned how to do become an EMT and learn how to drive heavy equipment and Code Python and all this shit He was able to do because they came at this education from a totally different way instead of saying Doug Doug is on on record talking about how he used to say

I don't think college is worth it. And he said, I've had to reevaluate my stance on that. I now think college is negatively impacting you. It's not only not worth it, it is a detriment to you. You're taking the four most important years of your life when you could be learning a variety of things and you're going into some sort of weird indoctrination system, you know, all of it. So.

I'm reimagining education. I'm up for all of that. It's so funny though, looking back on this, you're never gonna, mean, COVID is going to be the era that kind of kicked this off, that spun you into this whole brand new orbit. Did you ever think that you would really be doing this, having this?

of a network when you were going to school yourself? mean, was this on your radar? Is something you thought maybe I would want to do? Or is it just one of these callings that's overpowering you?

Brett Pike - Classical Learner (24:48.895)
Good luck.

Brett Pike - Classical Learner (24:53.79)
Well, the best part about my story is I'm just an average idiot. mean, there's nothing particularly special about me other than my mindset and my belief and because of that anyone who sees my story and they really understand it knows that they're capable of doing all types of incredible things, building systems, starting businesses. It's really not something that is out of the reach of anyone and I spent

my school years, just getting by. I got B's because that's what my parents were happy with. And if they were happy, I was. I wasn't into all of that. And I went to college. And to me, going to college, like going to college when I was 17 years old, I didn't even view it as something where I'm going to get an education and get a job. I didn't care about that at all. I was the youngest of four kids. I had watched my brothers and sisters.

go to college and just party their lives away and talked about how great it was and how much fun I'd have. And to me, that's what I was going to college for. So I spent my first few years in college, just partying. Like that's what it was about. And, um, you know, then I remember my junior year of college, it kind of dawned on me a little bit where I was like, uh-oh, because I had major. I was like, I don't know. I'll be a teacher. I was like, uh-oh.

Well, I'm going to be responsible for teaching young people. I don't know anything. So I said, okay, junior college, Brett, you're going to get serious. You're to get serious now. You're going to be an adult. And, um, I took the schooling more seriously. Like I started to study and I started to watch CNN and Fox news because my idea at the time was, okay, I'll get, I'll get both sides of the story from CNN Fox news. That's what I thought. I didn't know anything. So

Anyway, I started watching them instead of sports at that time. And that was like what consumed my days. I had the news on all the time and I started to get into that world. You you start to the back and forth of the politics and you start to get passionate within that limited scope of an Overton window that they show you and their brainwashing tactics. And I did that. I graduated from my bachelor's program. I went to my master's program and all of a sudden I went from the student who

Brett Pike - Classical Learner (27:13.958)
Never really did anything in school. Graduated my master's program with a 4.0 GPA. I won the award for the top student in my program. And I remember graduating and now that I took school serious for a few years, because I made a conscious decision to do that thinking, I don't think I know much about anything. Like I don't feel like I know how to do anything. I don't feel like this was valuable. Got into the workforce. I did very well there. And

Charlie Robinson (27:21.075)
Wow.

Charlie Robinson (27:38.889)
Right.

Brett Pike - Classical Learner (27:43.691)
That was kind of my arc, and still, even until the time I met my wife, I was still just really about that party life. I was just going out to bars and being an idiot and just having fun. But that started to change. I became a husband, and ultimately I became a father. And when I became a father, my priorities started to change. And I started to get really serious about the world, and I started to get really serious about our lives, and...

I remembered a few years earlier that, um, cause I started to think that there was more to what I could be doing than what I was doing, just working for paychecks and whatnot. And, um, a few years earlier, a friend of mine had told me about rich dad, poor dad, and it was a great book for business. And that kind of resonated with me. I didn't even understand rhetoric at the time, but rhetorically it resonated with me like, Hey, maybe I haven't been getting the right advice here. And I read that book.

And it really started to, okay, I have not been getting good advice on how you could structure your life. And then I started to read all types of business books and I started to think about things I could do. And, I tried some things, I failed at some things and ultimately I found my lane in my passion, which was educating. Cause I knew from being in the school system that I wasn't going to send my kids there. And I started doing those consultations and writing the books. And then it just kind of.

really grew into something that it is now.

Charlie Robinson (29:15.74)
Yeah, so funny when you find what you were kind of meant to do. It doesn't feel like work. I know people used to always say that and I've thought, well, I hear you and I believe you and I don't doubt you, but I just never got there, right? It wasn't until I started doing my own thing with writing books and then eventually podcast and activist post and all of that. I look around and I go, okay.

I'm where I'm supposed to be when I'm supposed to be here. I wouldn't have been right for this too early in my life because I was doing what you were doing. And I wouldn't want to do it too much later in my life because then I would have felt like I missed out on it. So the timing has to be right. But boy, when you find something that you're passionate about, it doesn't feel like work. so when we're looking at the education system here and what you're doing with Classical Learner,

Brett Pike - Classical Learner (29:55.434)
Thank

Brett Pike - Classical Learner (30:02.122)
Thank

Charlie Robinson (30:12.326)
Like who's your customer? Who's reaching out to you about this? it American? Is it America-centric? Is this international in scope? I what's the common denominator? Was it COVID that freaked people out or is this just they've made a calculation they don't want their kid to be transitioned in high school or elementary school even worse?

Brett Pike - Classical Learner (30:29.875)
Hopefully three or four.

Charlie Robinson (30:39.092)
and that they just want out of the system. I'm just curious if there is some sort of common denominator between everybody who kind of comes your way.

Brett Pike - Classical Learner (30:41.929)
And I think it's one of those systems. I'm just if the is so true, the common denominator between everybody who's kind of melted away. No, I mean, the common denominator is parents who recognize what the system is and they want more for their kids. And that's everything from parents who see all the lies and they don't want their kids taught all the lies to parents who just inherently understand that the system is designed to teach their children to memorize and

develop the habits of dependence and they want independence for their kids. So I get a wide range including I get the phone calls. mean people it's so funny because you get the gaslighting news and they say these things aren't happening like no I get the phone calls from the mom or the dad who is completely freaked out because their kids school not only told one of the kids that it's okay that they could be a cat but they set up a litter box for them and this is happening in schools in America and

Charlie Robinson (31:38.26)
Great.

Brett Pike - Classical Learner (31:41.169)
And it's all over the world. I have customers who are in England and Australia and all over the world. like to state for the record. I don't market to those places and I am under the jurisdiction of the laws of the United States of America because I can't deal with the laws of all these different countries. So I'm just stating that for the record. So if I ever get called into a court, I will take this clip and I will show it as proof.

but yeah, we have people that joined from all over the world because I can't control what people do. And, you see the same concerns and it's just parents who not only want better, but they know in their heart that sending their children to the public school system is not giving their kids the best chance at life.

Charlie Robinson (32:10.803)
happily.

Charlie Robinson (32:32.991)
No, let's talk about the curriculum.

What is a child going to learn here? You've got an education worthy of freedom, man. If that isn't a great foundation, I don't know what is. We start there, right? An education that's sort of based on freedom. How different of an experience is this for somebody who's coming out of a government school system and they're making this transition and they're going, all right, I'm gonna do it this time. We're gonna really do it. We're gonna dedicate ourselves to this. It's kind of scary.

take a look at the curriculum, they pick classical learner, they want to through this program. Is it overwhelming for them? Or can you ease them into it? What is this like? How do you go from government school with that sort of crazy structure into something that is just a little bit more blurry?

Brett Pike - Classical Learner (33:33.457)
Yeah, well, the best part about homeschooling and this is really how education should be because it shouldn't be cookie cutters and you know, you have type A personalities, you have all types of personalities that are homeschool parents and all types of personalities in children and not every student has to be molded into the same exact result. insane idea that comes from the public school system. So what you'll find is you get 100 people in a room and you get they

they school a hundred different ways or they educate their kids a hundred different ways. And what I try to do with what we're doing is to be a resource. We don't cover everything yet. I'm only a few years in and building out an entire K through 12 curriculum, which we could do cover all ages is a tremendous task. So what I try to do is provide the things that matter and to be as flexible and to provide as many resources to the parents as possible. So we run

Live classes, five days a week for elementary students and for middle school, high school students. That's how we break the classes up and we cover a variety of different subjects. We have pre-recorded courses. So parents who don't want to do the live classes could do on their own schedule. And a lot of families prefer that. And then we have all types of principal lesson plans and unit studies. And what I always tell parents is you want to focus on the things that matter. And I try to help them.

focus on those things. So we start financial literacy in elementary school and all throughout elementary, middle school, high school, we just beat the drum on entrepreneurship and improving the children's financial literacy. And not just through the typical classroom model of, okay, we're going to read about it in a book or we're going to be lectured about it, but getting the students to follow their interests, to actually do real entrepreneurial things in the real world. And then

kind of coaching the parents to be the guide of that child and to use what they're doing to teach them the things you want them to learn and to challenge them to take on the things that they're ready to take on, but maybe they didn't realize they could do if you weren't there to point it out and say, hey, look how great you are at taking these pictures. Well, you do know that uncle Matthew and aunt Jessica send out Christmas cards every year.

Brett Pike - Classical Learner (35:55.641)
And this is probably a layup that if you approach them and say you're starting a new business and that you would be happy to be hired to take their Christmas photos, I'd bet you'd have your first clients right off the jump. And then you kind of lay that out there and the child thinks about it and they say, you know what I do with my first clients. And then as they do that, you could start to build, right. And show them, how do you make a menu with different packages? Right. And this is what they get, or that is what they get. And

How do you do the marketing? How do you do the sales? How do you do the accounting? How do you manage that money? Once you have a shoe, we start a bank account. Do you want to get paid as someone who's like an employee or do you want to be able to write things off so that you get taxed less on the money that you make? And then you can go over, well, this is what corporate structures are. And this is how corporations structure the things that they do so that if they make a hundred dollars, they wind up paying taxes on

20 of those dollars, whereas an employee would pay taxes on all 100 of those dollars. So you start teaching children how to be self-reliant. And then as you do that, you focus on all the things that matter, like not just knowing your rights, but how to defend your rights, what real civics is, what I think it used to be before they decided they wanted us to all be dependent and not be able to fight back. And you start to teach all of these different things that matter.

Charlie Robinson (37:14.655)
Yeah.

Brett Pike - Classical Learner (37:22.301)
And then you have fun. teach them the real history stuff, the historical stuff. And you find it's so funny because the public school systems like these kids don't like reading. They don't like learning. have live classes that I teach with hundreds of kids in each class. And I don't have to assign the reading because they're constantly asking me, well, what book did you read on that? Where'd you get that information? Cause they want to go and read it. Because when you show children that you're teaching them how to see through the lies,

And to see the truth, the natural curiosity that is inside all of us comes alive and awakens. And it's so funny with the school system. They're like, these kids don't want to learn. It's cause they instinctively know what you're teaching them is bullshit. That's why they don't want to learn. Like that's why they're not interested. So you teach them this stuff. We talked about COVID this week, this semester we're studying. I'm teaching a course on history and propaganda and our textbook is.

Charlie Robinson (38:07.765)
Right.

Brett Pike - Classical Learner (38:20.786)
propaganda by Edward Bernays and we're using that loosely in his journey to cover 21st century propaganda. So a class or two ago, we covered how Bernays was behind bacon being the all American breakfast. And then we covered how he came up with this idea of hijacking a doctor's authority to push his product and how the industry took that idea a step further with the food pyramid.

Charlie Robinson (38:37.618)
Right.

Brett Pike - Classical Learner (38:50.312)
in 1977 and then 1992, where the lobbyists for the food industry basically were behind the creation of the government recommended quote unquote science backed food pyramid. So we led up to that learning about how industry could hijack authority of government and science. And then this past week, we started our study on COVID and we learned about what happened with the COVID-19 pandemic and

how they use this propaganda of the hijacking of medical authority to basically get people to comply with their will. And when you teach that way, the students really understand it. And they were really interested in that stuff because not only do they see the importance of it, but these kids lived it. They were kids, they've heard their parents talk about it and they want to understand it. And now they do.

And this next class, we're going to study the funding. We're going to study the tracking of the money, the tracking of the people, and a deeper dive into that propaganda as well as the overall agenda. And we're going to talk about the relation of the pandemic to the election. We're going to talk about the relation of the pandemic to the globalist agenda and the eradication of

the sovereignty of individual countries in an effort to bring on global governance. We're going to talk about people like Bill Gates winning awards for the reduction of population and their outspoken agenda to lower the human population. And when you teach students this way, what you'll find, and I just laugh at the school system, and I love to mock them, and I love to bring it up, is what you'll find is they absolutely love learning.

Charlie Robinson (40:41.597)
Yeah, I mean, maybe the state should, I don't know, consider not packaging their education system with a bunch of lies. Maybe the kids would have a little bit more of an interest in paying attention in school. I learned that when I went to events like a Narcopolco in Mexico a couple of years ago, I met some families that had these, you know, like free range kids and they're off the charts smart. You know, they just...

just coming at problems from a totally different direction. I taught a class this last year there, well it wasn't a class really, it was just that for the kids camp, I went in and talked to them about book publishing and all these kids. And there were a few kids that said, you know what, think I'm gonna write a book. And I believed them. They were really smart. There's no reason why these kids couldn't write books. And one of them had like the equivalent of a lemonade stand at an archipelco selling all kinds of.

gifts and trinkets and things that he had made. And so I learned that these kids are exceptionally bright, that they're dulled down because of the system. And once you pull them out of that system, they're able to flourish. It's a crime what the government is doing to these kids. That is the idea of this education. Boy, they should be tried for their crimes. What they pass off as the education system here.

Brett Pike - Classical Learner (41:40.584)
sure that's a bit of hard.

Brett Pike - Classical Learner (41:55.214)
You ready?

Charlie Robinson (42:04.115)
So where are you guys going with this? mean, like you said, you've been doing this a couple of years. This is, when it's your calling, it's, you know, this is gonna go on forever for you, right? So where's the future of this? I mean, what do you see as the next, like the evolution of classical learner? I mean, what would you like to be doing that you're not currently doing right now?

Brett Pike - Classical Learner (42:07.88)
Thanks for watching.

Brett Pike - Classical Learner (42:16.452)
So where's the difference?

Brett Pike - Classical Learner (42:27.148)
Before I answer that question just because you brought it up and it was an opportunity and I never miss an opportunity to promote this because I'm super proud of her and I'm like a dad I'm a teacher but I'm like a dad and

Here we go. So this is book one in the Kristen story series, a farm, an idea, and a girl named Kristen. This is book two in the Kristen story series, a trip, a trial, and a puppy named Bismarck.

Charlie Robinson (42:43.401)
He is off camera getting something.

Brett Pike - Classical Learner (43:09.754)
And this is another book in a different series, Royalty in Rough Waters. And this is 40 Selected Poems by an incredibly talented 15 year old girl, who's one of my students, who has written all of these books. And if you're a parent out there, and I can't stress this enough, when you get these books for your kids, they're available on Amazon. Type in K.F. Barrett and her books come up. K.F. Barrett. When you get these books,

for your teenager or for your new reader, very simple reads, very well written, they not only get a wholesome read and something you could feel great about, not like the garbage you see on Netflix, but they're reading a book from an author who's their peer, who's a teenager. And when you point out to them that this KF Barrett is only 15 years old and she's already done all of this, then that plants a seed in their mind that they can do it too.

And that's kind of my pitch for KF's books. And it is the most common sense thing for parents. So Christmas is coming up. KF Barrett is an absolute legend. And to make it cooler, she's such a legend that I actually hired her to put together a course. And we have a whole course that her and I taught together that she teaches her peers, her other students, how to publish their own books on

Amazon KDP. So proud of her. the other part of your question was, where do I see this going? And the answer is, this is only the beginning. And we are going to fundamentally transform the entire education system. And what we've built out in a few short years is nothing short of remarkable. I just hired another full-time employee who will be

building out an entire English language arts curriculum from 6th grade all the way up through high school. this is a classically educated person who is just an absolute gem of wisdom and knowledge. And we are going to build out everything, all the way from K, all the way through 12. We're only going to escalate with our live classes, with our pre-recorded courses. Ultimately, what I want is Charlie, I know we spoke about this in the past,

Brett Pike - Classical Learner (45:34.893)
is you to put together whatever it is, maybe a seven to 15 class course that we could post on Homeschools Connected and you could promote, we'll get you an affiliate link for that. I'm not quite Rockefeller, so I can't go giving everyone thousands of dollars, but I did build out an affiliate system. And once you get it up there, it's like you have your own course. And the cool thing is, Charlie, if people sign up for your course, they also get all of mine, right? So.

They might sign up it's $30 a month right now. And, um, they might sign up for your course on whatever subject you teach. And then they get access to everything I do, everything Natalie does, everything Manny does, all our other teachers. So they get a whole library of courses. And if they stay in the program, the cool thing is they get your course, they get all of ours and you. I set the affiliate system up this way on purpose is you not only get paid.

a percentage of that initial $30 signup, but as long as they remain in our program, so if they stay for 10 years, you get a percentage of that revenue each month they pay for 10 years. So it's like one signup, but again and again and again, the motto I'm using is you get them to sign up and I'll get them to stay and then I just have to do a good job. so that's one of the things we're doing right now, but ultimately the goal is to

Charlie Robinson (46:45.523)
Brett Pike - Classical Learner (47:02.309)
make it so we have an education system really that I believe we can outcompete Harvard. I believe we can build a better business school than Harvard. We can build the best media school in the country. We can do all of this. And I have access to all of the best people. I'm talking to you right now. I spoke to Richard about this last time and Scott Armstrong last time, the three of us, the four of us spoke. And I have Max Bonilla. I don't know if you know Max.

Charlie Robinson (47:29.61)
No.

Brett Pike - Classical Learner (47:29.959)
but he is currently putting together a chorus. What a legend. He's a baby-faced boomer, outraged teen. He's also known as Gavin Newsom's worst nightmare. Gavin Newsom, actually most people don't know this, but before Gavin Newsom goes to bed every night, he checks under his bed, checks in his closet to make sure that Max Bonilla is not there to expose his garbage. He's the boogie man to Newsom.

So Max is teaching a course on the history of banking and the Federal Reserve that is going to drop soon. So I'm just bringing in good people, whether they're former teachers who are disenfranchised by the system and they want to be curriculum developers. I have one teacher, Rachel Wilson, follow her on social media, absolute legend. She was a public school teacher who blew the whistle to let everyone know that public schools with the devices they give your kid.

Charlie Robinson (47:57.841)
Ugh.

Brett Pike - Classical Learner (48:27.239)
are using AI to track the emotions, they're tracking facial expressions and emotions of each child. This is funded by Bill Gates, by the way, and they are creating social emotional learning profiles on each of the children. They then have the ability, as the AI creates these social emotional learning profiles, to have the AI adjust what they're being shown.

what they're being taught. Maybe they're not upset enough about the climate agenda. Maybe they're not upset enough about whatever it is they want you to be upset about. And they're going to make sure they keep showing you things until that child has been emotionally manipulated into accepting whatever the agenda is. Talk about the opposite of what education should be. And anyway, Rachel blew the whistle on this. She's just a woman. She's great. And anyway, I hired her and now she teaches a weekly

writing and poetry class for our elementary school students. So my objective is to bring in the best, most moral, just great human beings in the world and the best educators and just get them in front of the kids and we'll take it from there.

Charlie Robinson (49:45.406)
Yeah, you mentioned social emotional learning. triggered something for me. That was what a guy named Ben Gertzel, who is the developer of the Sophia robot, the robot in Saudi Arabia, the woman robot that was given citizenship in this media stunt. There's a Sophia robot, then there's the little Sophia. And that

It was what he went off and did in the aftermath of that with six and a half million dollars from Jeffrey Epstein to create a little Sophia doll that was for social and emotional learning that would be wired with cameras, microphones, geotagged, whatever, all that.

about an 18 inch doll that would then be taken by girls ages eight and up, put in their bedroom, they'd talk to it, it would record everything. It was like a menu for pedophiles, of course. And this concept that they're going to get these kids early on. So my feeling is, boy, if you know that the Epstein's of the world are going after kids with social emotional learning.

Brett Pike - Classical Learner (50:37.094)
That's it, they're flying.

Brett Pike - Classical Learner (50:40.966)
So I feel like.

Charlie Robinson (50:47.589)
We as parents have to be aware of it and battle it on our own and diffuse, you know, and battle that with good social emotional education to counteract this insanity that's, that's being, injected in there to try and get our kids. I mean, I feel like it's a real dangerous spot here with technology. Like the kids are so vulnerable. I'm glad that you've got her.

writing about this because in teaching about this, because this is going to be invaluable for children going forward to understand like what we're actually up against here.

Brett Pike - Classical Learner (51:18.406)
Yeah, that's why we want to arm our children with that intellectual self-defense. And from a young age, we teach them logic. We teach them the logical fallacies. So they understand from a young age what an appeal to emotion is, right? You want to sit down with your kids and play that Sarah McLaughlin commercial. In the arms of the angel. For just one dollar a day, you can make sure that this

dirty dog with flies all over its body has a meal to eat and a clean bath. And they can watch that and you could talk to them. Well, what do you think they're trying to achieve with this commercial? And why are they playing the music and why are they showing the dirty dog? Couldn't they have given the dog a bath before the commercial? And the children understand they start to point out through Socratic questioning and that type of thing. They start to point out, okay, so they're using the

music to try to make me sad. And why are they trying to make you sad? Well, because they're trying to get me to give them money. Right. So now you're understanding that they're using something called an appeal to emotion. Right. And we start to teach them about these things that way and very simple, easy to understand ways. Now, I mean, I actually put together a course using the Cubs to Bears children book series called Intro to Propaganda for elementary school students.

And we literally cover like appeals to emotion and, and like all types of propaganda. And it's a whole fake news broadcast I put together, but which is more real than anything you'll see on CNN. But the point is that you could teach your kids the logical fallacies. You teach them how to get back to primary documents and the importance of, proving things to themselves and all of that. And then when they get put in front of those emotional things, they have that little you in the back of their head saying,

Charlie Robinson (52:55.861)
All right.

Brett Pike - Classical Learner (53:16.186)
Wait a second, is this based on truth or is this an appeal to emotion? And they'll identify it themselves.

Charlie Robinson (53:25.377)
Isn't that amazing? you inform them, this is what's happening. This is the tactic that the magician is using to put this trick on, know, pull it over on you. It just takes away all their power. for some kids to see, well, hell, for some adults, to see that tactic is revolutionary for them, you know, to, I never knew. Let's wrap up with this. Let's say you're a parent. This sounds good. This is...

This is what I want. This is something that I need. Maybe I'm unsure. Maybe I'm a little, I don't know. I'm scared because I've never taught my kids, who am I? I'm unqualified for this. I don't know anything. I mean, I'm gonna teach my kid this is a catastrophe. But maybe it's not a catastrophe, right? If they're in a position, they're starting to ask questions about this and they have, and they wanna know more about you.

what you're doing, where you're doing it, how you're doing it, who you're doing it with, what's the best place for them to connect with you to get more information.

Brett Pike - Classical Learner (54:22.47)
with the death.

Brett Pike - Classical Learner (54:27.898)
Yeah, well, they can definitely do a better job than the pink haired communist at their local public school. So that start right there. But yeah, www dot classical learner dot com. That's classical learner dot com. And you can see everything there and my social media. I'm classical learner on Instagram. I'm also Cubs to Bears books on Instagram, which is slightly more aggressive than my classical channel.

And I'm Classic Learner because Classical was taken on X. But if you go to classicallearner.com, everything's there, the social media icons and join homeschools connected. It's $30 a month. If you don't like it, just cancel. But I think you'll like it. And what I would tell a lot of parents is they could even try things out and just, you know, it's no big deal. It's not like some big commitment to try things out, see how the classes are, see how you like it. And, you know, what you'll find is it's not that intimidating.

And, you know, in terms of homeschooling, like anything else, you start to do it and you haven't done it before. So it's a big change, but you get more comfortable and better with it. The more you do it. the homeschool community is incredibly supportive. I, myself, we have a community group of thousands of homeschool parents and they literally just talk to their friends. They bounce ideas off each other. They come to each other with trials and tribulations and they help one another. So.

There's plenty of support and absolutely nothing to be afraid of.

Charlie Robinson (56:02.397)
Well, I'm glad you're doing it. It's there's never been a better time to do it. We have the technology, the resources available to us. There's also never been a time that you needed to do it more than right now. So we've got two things. We've got a bad situation unfolding with the education system, but luckily we have solutions. And of course we're all about solutions here. That's Brett Pike, everybody. You can go to classicallearner.com, find out every

working on if you decide that you like the program, you want to pull the trigger, use the promo code macro on your way out the door to save yourself a little bit of money. You can catch me macroaggressions wherever macroaggressions.io is the website to do that. If you haven't rated the show yet, hopefully you'll take two seconds to do that. We appreciate it. Thanks everybody. We'll talk to you again soon.