Classical Education, AI, and Local Business: A Conversation with the Adamos

In this episode of Hoplite Radio, Mr. Anderson sits down with the Mr. and Mrs. Adamo to explore why they chose Ridgeview Classical Schools and why they continue to stay. From first impressions during their campus tour to the lasting impact of a classical education, they discuss the importance of community, character formation, and meaningful academic challenge at Ridgeview.

The conversation also dives into the potential impact of artificial intelligence on education, examining both its promise and its risks. How can students learn to think deeply in an age of shortcuts? And what does it mean to pursue truth, not just grades?

Plus, Dominick and Chelsea Adamo share insights into their businesses, Rocket Jones, a custom software company, and Clean Air Lawn Care, a sustainable lawn care franchise, offering a closer look at the work, ideas, and entrepreneurship within our own community.

00:10:09 Discussion on a Ridgeview’s approach to education with a focus on effort, engagement, and balance.
00:18:28 AI in Education: shortcut concern, atrophy of thinking, tool vs. replacement.

00:16:24 Rocket Jones: Custom software, business solutions, AI in development

00:20:30 Clean Air Lawn Care: Sustainable lawn care and franchise model

Read The Transcript:

00:00

[INTRO MUSIC]

00:00:15 Mr. Anderson

Hello, welcome to Hoplite Radio, an educational podcast by Ridgeview Classical Schools, which explores the importance of classical education in a modern era. Today, I am joined by the Adamos. So welcome.

00:00:27 Mr. & Mrs. Adamo

Thank you.

00:00:29 Mr. Anderson

We're going to learn a little bit about you guys. You guys can choose between the two of you as to who wants to start. But how did you first hear about Ridgeview?

00:00:37 Mrs. Adamo

I think we heard about it from some friends that had kids here. Yeah, I think maybe the Reeves family.

00:00:44 Mr. Adamo

Yeah, we went to church with the Reeves and there are a few other families I think that all had kids at Ridgeview and had experiences that pushed us in this direction and led us to check it out.

00:00:54 Mr. Anderson

Okay. What did you hear from them that sort of piqued your interest?

00:00:59 Mrs. Adamo

Pretty much the classical education piece that they were loving their teachers, that they felt like their students were, their kids were really known by their teachers and invested in.

00:01:10 Mr. Adamo

Yeah, I think we heard about the community here, just the involvement of parents and that they felt like they were kind of surrounded by people that were like-minded in a way when it came to the kind of education that their kids got. So it all sounded super interesting. Yeah, we're glad that we checked it out.

00:01:29 Mrs. Adamo

We came in and took a tour.

00:01:31 Mr. Anderson

All right, and how did the tour go? What stood out, I guess?

00:01:34 Mrs. Adamo

A couple of pieces of the tour when we were walking around just the way we could tell especially like in the high school students and the older students, they were making eye contact, they were talking to us, they were holding doors saying, "Good morning." And it was in a time when we were, we had a lot of college student neighbors and we felt like we really couldn't carry conversations on with them or we had trouble getting them to even neighborly, out in the front yard, talk with us. And we really wanted our kids to grow up with those conversation skills, with those interpersonal skills and be able to develop that. And so that stood out to me a lot from the tour.

00:02:13 Mr. Adamo

No, actually, it's weird to say that the students sold it for us, but being here on campus and walking through the halls and just a little bit that we got to interact with the kids that go to school here, we were impressed. And we were like, these are the kind of kids that we would like our children surrounded by as they grow up, as they go through school. And of course, the classical component to the education was really appealing. We'll get into that, but I grew up going to a private school that taught along the lines of a classical style. And so it reminded me of the school I went to growing up as well.

00:02:51 Mr. Anderson

That's good. Yeah, I've sometimes said that I think that we're trying to build the school that we wish to eat had. So, I think it's always interesting that there are some people who had something that looked something like this. And there are a lot of other people to include faculty who had something that was nothing like this. And then they realized somewhere around the time, probably that they were in their undergrad, that they were like, man, I have missed a lot of pieces. And I feel like I'm working really hard to regain all these things I probably should have gotten earlier. I certainly felt that way. I thought, but the time I got to undergrad, I realized how much I missed in high school.

00:03:21 Mrs. Adamo

I think definitely for me, I went to a big high school where I was one of several hundred. And I got to college in undergrad and realized I didn't really understand how to study, or prepare for bigger exams or things like that. And so, yeah, I agree.

00:03:43 Mr. Anderson

I like that you point out the fact that it was the students in many respects that sold it for you. And they're sort of maturity, I guess. Social maturity, being able to look a person in the eye shake hands, talk. I think that's one of the longstanding things that's kind of set Ridgeview apart is people used to say, I went to this dinner party or I went to some event. And I knew within 60 seconds of talking to the student that they probably went to read you. Because they weren't glued to a phone and they were making eye contact and they could hold a conversation.

00:04:17 Mrs. Adamo

I don't know if you remember this, probably don't, but when Vince finished kindergarten and they did the ceremony where they come up and get their paper with the adama was his last name, he was the first one. And so he was kind of like, you know, what do I do? Grab my paper and you were shaking hands with every one of the students and he kind of like went to go back before he shook hands and you were like, no, no, come back over here. And he came back over, shook your hand, looked you in the eye and I was just like, oh yeah, exactly. That's how they do it. They start it from kindergarten. And I loved it right away.

00:04:48 Mr. Adamo

Yeah. I think it's an appreciation of like that education should impact every area of your life, right? And success in social situations is as important as anything else in my opinion, right? Like you need to have academic success. But to really, I think have a full life, you need to understand how to navigate things socially, be outside of your comfort zone, be pushed in that way. And so that was super important for us and still is. And so we asked cool to get to be a part of that.

00:05:20 Mr. Anderson

Yeah. And then so now being here, you know, I think taking the tour and everything and that can be a positive experience. But being here, what have you seen that's, you know, maybe recommitted you to Ridgeview?

00:05:33 Mr. Adamo

Again, well, so many things. And you know, to be totally honest, we revisit the school situation with our kids every year. And we ask them, we check in, we watch their performance throughout the year and we are always trying to weigh whether for each of them individually, this is the right setting. And it every year it comes back around it than it is. They love it here. I think there's a lot to that question. There are a lot of things that kind of keep us coming back. I believe that you are a product of the people you surround yourself with and your success to a large degree is, you know, dictated by that or at least heavily influenced by it. And our kids have such good friends here. I think they're a community and then in turn, the parents that we're friends with and seeing the community here, seeing the level of involvement that parents have in their kids' lives and engaging in their education and, um, still like putting on events for the kids and for the families is a big part of why we end up. I think at least why I want to come back.

00:06:40 Mrs. Adamo

Yeah, absolutely. With our kids every year. Yeah. Every time we talk about, you know, do you want something different, do you want your school to look different? They always come back. They want to stay with their friends and keep their group of friends. And so I love that for them. They have a great community. I think with, with Ridgeview, when our oldest was in elementary school 10 years ago, the homework was a lot and we struggle with that for a little bit because it made it kind of difficult to have any other outside activities. It made it difficult if you played a sport outside of school or things like that. But I think also with like the parent surveys, you got that feedback. You kind of made some adjustments. And that was really cool to see that also like you're not afraid to change or think that you're doing everything perfect and kind of see that and make a change. And that was really, it was night and day for us of the way that we could enjoy the evenings a little bit more as a family and get the kids involved in some other things. A lot of things that we love about Ridgeview also are the outdoor program, the way that they get those experiences with their friends at that age. That's the kind of thing where you talk about like a school I wish I had gone to. That would have been incredible for me to get to have these experiences with my friends at such a young age and be pushed. You know, there's, I went on the fourth grade snow shoe trip a couple of years ago and I was like, it's too cold. They really going to let these kids like walk around in this cold and stop and eat lunch, but the kids were great. They crushed it. They did such a good job and they, you can just see them getting stronger as they do those things. And it was, it was really cool to get a firsthand experience of getting to see my kid get stronger in the moment.

00:08:21 Mr. Anderson

Yeah. I mean, I'm glad that you bring up the survey. So now I can do a plug for everybody taking surveys. They really are important. I mean, I know that they're kind of a pain from the parent perspective, but I don't know how other places do it, but I sort of agonize over survey data because I realize, there's a choice as you, as you put it, like you're remaking the choice each time, which I think is appropriate. I mean, the first thing out of my mouth is pretty much an informational meeting anymore is, you know, you're, you're extremely fortunate to have educational choice, but the part of that is that you're going to have to make an educated choice. And so, it's good that you're here tonight, but you should, this shouldn't be the only informational meeting you attend. You should go to other schools, and you should look at everything and compare and decide what's best for your children and for your family. So, I spend a lot of time agonizing over that survey data, trying to figure out how do we fine tune this to make it worth your while. And I think that's true with the parents when they have all the entry students, but it's also true. I just told the seniors the other day, I said, listen, if you were to calculate all of the time that you've spent in this moral philosophy class as a percentage of your life, you have to have gotten something for this. So on the very low end, hopefully you at least found me entertaining, but on the high end, I hope that it changes the way you reflect on the decisions that you make. And the part I care less about, frankly, and this is not a popular thing to say in academia or education, I guess. But it is I'm less concerned about your grade than I am whether this whole experience taken in total has changed your life. And I think that's the thing that a lot of programs are missing.

00:10:09 Mrs. Adamo

I think we feel the same way and we get this question from other parents sometimes of like, well, how are your kids doing with the school load? And we're like, yeah, they're doing, okay, also we don't care about grades that much because we want the well-rounded experience. We want them not just going to school all day and then coming home and doing homework and studying all night. We want them playing outside and hanging out with us as a family and all the things. So we agree with you there.

00:10:33 Mr. Adamo

Yeah. I mean, Ridgeview is a hard school. That's one of the things I do like about it. I like that there are, you all have higher expectations for my kids than I do. Starting at a young age, I remember like I would look at their like homework, you know, Vince was in fourth grade. He would come home and I'd be like, dang, that's the question that's you’re studying for your history tests. Like this feels like a high school level. Like they're really challenging you to think critically at that age and to really digest the information and form an opinion right or wrong, right? Like this is how you need to approach it to understand the subject matter. That's hard. And so, for us to be really wrapped up in the grades feels like it's going to be counterproductive. It's really more about like effort and engagement. Are you really doing your best? And so that's it's, you know, that's our focus.

00:11:21 Mr. Anderson

Yeah. I mean, well, and to go back to something you said earlier, I think that like their capacity like socially engage, like it, you know, they weigh under sell that like a kid that can walk in and just having this conversation like maybe two weeks ago with the ambassadors. And I said like your ability to walk in and just present confidently, and I don't mean present from behind a lectern about, you know, pyramids or something. I mean, your ability to walk in, introduce yourself and talk about a thing confidently is worth a lot. And I think it gets underrepresented in a lot of programs. So, I like the fact that you brought it up because I hope that that's what our kids are capable of. And I think that, you know, this is always kind of one of these experiences that I go back to is I was teaching a moral phil class one day and a mom was sitting in the classroom just observing. And she said and the kids were going back and forth and they kind of gotten this argument about some point, but it was like the world's most civil and polite, which ultimately concluded with the boy who had been arguing with his other girl and he said, wait, I think I misunderstood you.I think we agree. And then they went through it and yes, they didn't actually agree. And the kids left the room and the mom goes, man, for like a really heavy question and like something that has like absolute significance in life, that was about a civil at discourse, is anybody could have hoped for? And she goes, if you don't see adults do that. And I thought, yeah, that's crazy. That 17 and 18 year old kids have got it dialed in enough that and they'll continue those conversations into the hallways. And I think it's still, you know, still very polite. And I think it's truth seeking, hopefully. It's not just can I win? Well, I might ego be gratified, but is it truth seeking?

00:13:15 Mr. Adamo

Yeah. Yeah. That’s awesome. That's really what it should be about, right? And it's cool to see the students already displaying those qualities and that, you know, they're going to take it forward into their lives. And whatever their lives end up looking like, I believe they're going to derive more out of their experience out of this life, right? If they are seeking truth in that way, if they're listening to other people and truly trying to hear them, if they are comfortable and confident and capable of expressing their beliefs and their thoughts in a coherent way and then hearing someone else's, maybe someone else's argument they disagree with, but they're able to identify like what the argument is, the key points and they can, they can actually have a back and forth that dialogue. Number one, I do think they will be more successful in life. I think they will enjoy life more. I think they're going to get more out of what this world has to offer and what our relationships have to offer. And me, it's a huge thing to end out these kids with. It's exciting to hear about it and to see it.

00:14:18 Mrs. Adamo

Absolutely. I think the depth of that kind of discourse that you're talking about too comes from them learning not just to memorize facts or, oh, well, I know my side of the argument because my teacher told it to me or my parents told it to me, but they've learned to form their own thoughts. And then they can have these discourses because they don't just know what they know. They know how they arrived at what they know. And I think that history test from like fourth, fifth grade was the question was, is Thomas Jefferson a good president? Was he a good president? Why or why not? And I loved that that was the question. It wasn't just memorize that he was a president, memorize that he was this number president and he did these things. Have the time to reflect, do you think Vince as a fifth grader that he was a good president? Why or why not? And I love that piece of it. And I think that's why, yeah, it contributes to that kind of discourse because they've learned not just to memorize, but to think. Right.

00:15:17 Mr. Anderson

Yeah. So, to transition a little bit about to your business and to kind of set the stage for why are we talking about the business? I think this Valborg on Saturday, the crazy race, it was what, 356 people registered and 131 racers.

00:15:34 Mr. Adamo

Wow.

00:15:35 Mr. Anderson

But one of the things I think is really interesting is we've now, we're trying to figure out what the first year we did that, it was either, I think, 2017 or 18 somewhere in there is just all the people who aren't racing, who are kind of hanging out together and they've gotten to know one another, they either know one another from the book group, sort of they are hopefully repatriate, is they one another's businesses or, but there is like, I think an element of community that really is contingent on, do we actually know one another? And so when we came up with the idea of doing these, it wasn't just to promote businesses, but I think like, full people back into the community and make people realize, you know, there are a lot of different people here doing a lot of different things and a lot of different experiences. And I think that's beneficial to talk about. So, let's talk about rocket Jones.

00:16:23 Mr. Adamo

Okay.

00:16:24 Mr. Anderson

So, tell me about Rocket Jones. Talk to me like I'm a fifth grader.

00:16:28 Mr. Adamo

Well, Rocket Jones has been around for over 22 years. It was founded by a guy named Jeff Bristol. He is family of lived in Colorado and in Fort Collins for a long, long time. Awesome dude. I think a lot of people in this community actually know him. They've attended church with him and done things like that. But he and his wife were wonderful. He started the business, ran it for a super long time. He had a developer named Jeff Schumacher, who's now our CTO. I came into the business a few years ago to kind of take over as Jeff Bristol was ready to retire. We build custom software for businesses. That's always been what Rocket Jones is about. So what does that mean? It means we do anything from you, you run a business and maybe you use a CRM to manage your client information. Maybe that CRM helps you with marketing and a few other things, but it doesn't do everything you wish it would do. Maybe it does like 80%. Really well, but that last 20% can be a little bit painful. We'll come in and we build custom application to fill that gap, to improve your life, your team's life, your clients' lives. So, we can do small projects like that all the way up to full scale, like enterprise builds for businesses, a lot of businesses. Off the shelf software, so SaaS products that are out there, and it works for a lot of companies, but there are a lot of different organizations that require specifically built software for their clients or as a product that they sell. And so that's what we do. We come in, we learn the business, we learn what you're trying to do. We sit down with you, we learn your workflows, your pain points, and then we build out a custom application for you. So, it's an interesting business to be in. I get to meet a lot of different people and work with a lot of businesses. AI is, of course, changing things.

00:18:28 Mr. Anderson

Yeah, I was going to ask, how has AI impacted all of this?

00:18:33 Mr. Adamo

It's a challenge and an opportunity at the same time. None of us know where it's going, right? We hear both sides of the arguments, like it's going to end everything or it's going to usher us into like this the next era of human flourishing, like who knows? I think it's probably somewhere in between, but immediately, like all the cool AI stuff, like the ChatGPT and Claud AI, they're really cool. They're amazing tools to interact with just as a lay person, but the coolest things have been built for developers. So, if you are a software engineer and you're good at your job, the AI tools that are out there for you are, I mean, they make you like multiple developers in one now. You are your own self-contained team. They're a force multiplier. And so we are able to use that technology. Our developers are all US-based. They're very smart people. They've been around and they've seen a lot. And now when you hand this tool over to them, they can rock and roll and they can knock out some amazing stuff. And so we're able to pump out projects more quickly. We're able to save on cost for clients. Sorry, I'm talking a lot about it. But basically, code will be easier and easier to make. Vibe coding, if you haven't heard that, that's basically just using AI to build software. It can get you a pretty long way. The skill set is going to change in what makes a good development team. It's not going to be how good is your code, how well can you build code? It's going to be, how well do you understand your client? How well do you understand the use case and the pain points? How good of a product manager are you basically?

So it shifts the emphasis a little bit.

00:20:22 Mr. Anderson

Okay.

00:20:23 Mrs. Adamo

You want me to talk now?

00:20:26 Mr. Anderson

Only if you have something.

00:20:30 Mr. Adamo

I talk a lot.

00:20:31 Mrs. Adamo

I work for a company called Clean Air Long Care. They're based out of Seattle. But it's a long care franchise where all of the equipment is electric. So, it's no gas pollution. It's quiet. It's not smelly. And then all of the treatment that we use for our treatment programs are organic. So, you're not putting chemicals down on the lawn that then the kids are playing in, the dogs are rolling around in and tracking back in the house. So, it's a sustainable long care franchise. And I work with entrepreneurs who are coming on board developing new locations. So, if someone wants to open a location in Birmingham, Alabama, I'll be their point person as they get going.

00:21:10 Mr. Anderson

To go back to the AI thing for just a second, because I do think that it has some fairly significant implications for education. And one of those would be, if you look at sort of the advent of these mobile technology, smartphones, iPads, et cetera, what's interesting is the people who developed those things did not want their own children to have them. In some cases, they forbid them from having them. At the time, I always made jokes that, of course, I mean, the guy is running the cartels, didn't let their own kids do drugs. And they understood how disruptive and dangerous these things were from a developmental standpoint. Do you think that there is a similar concern about AI? Because I think there's a lot of conversations happening right now, and I've had conversations with students where I've said, you know, the problem with using this to write a paper is that the point of the paper isn't the grade, and it's not even really so much the position that you take on a question. It's the research that goes into it. It's the learning how to think. I mean, we often say, right, clear writing represents clear thinking. And to use AI is essentially a short circuit that, right? It's to render moot the point of the exercise because it has done the work that you were supposed to be doing. I mean, it's really not about the grade. You've sort of cheated yourself. And so I think that they understand that. Now, there's always hold true, and they're perfect angels, and they never resort to this. No, I don't know that that's true, but I do think that they fundamentally understand that they are short circling the process. So is AI, because, you know, once the gene is out of the bottle, and I would say definitely out of the bottle at this point? What do you anticipate might be the impact education and sort of how people learn?

00:23:11 Mr. Adamo

Definitely worries me. You know, I use different products that are out there. I'm a 42-year-old man, and I worry. I'm using it too much as a crutch or a shortcut, because you can feel it. Like, I don't feel like I process maybe my thoughts when I'm writing an email sometimes, if I'm going to use AI to help me draft it or build a presentation. So even for myself at this point, I still worry that I am starting to let certain things atrophy, if that makes sense. It is like an easy button. I think part of learning is getting comfortable with the discomfort or the pain that is learning. Your brain is working hard. It's using energy. It kind of hurts to work through something complicated and to learn it. With AI, you don't have to do that anymore. And so I do think like a muscle, you can atrophy in a way. So yeah, I am concerned about the extent to which kids are going to be using it for school. I think I worry that they're going to think that AI's output is their output. I think again, it's a tool. And in the hands of someone that has done the thinking and that has spent the time on a subject, it can be an amazing help. But it needs to be guided. You need to know the subject matter. You got to be able to check it. You need to lead it. And my worry is it will easily end up the other way around to the detriment of our kids and ourselves.

00:24:57 Mr. Anderson

Yeah. I mean, I've told my daughter. I said, AI in some sense seems like Wally for your brain.  It didn't atrophy to your bodies.  I told her we'd atrophied our minds. And there's a, so there's a lot that could be said there. I think in fact, apparent to the last, last summer's, some reading group said, you know, we might be the last generation that can use AI intelligently because we still regarded as suspect, but we regarded as suspect because we weren't taught by it. We taught it. And he goes, yeah, when you switch that paradigm around and it teaches the next generation, they won't have much of an instinct left to be suspicious. It's, you know, it does seem like a kind of danger. It's a dangerous tool because it's a seductive tool.

00:25:53 Mr. Adamo

Very seductive, yeah. Because it makes so many things easier. And like you said, though, if you look at it from a business standpoint, it's hugely alluring because there's so much possibility and it to work faster, to work more efficiently, to require less human resources, et cetera. It's just, is there, you know, I've almost like tried to like conceive of how that might look and some utopian bubble that we put children under a dome for, you know, 18 years so that they have to be trained to think and then they get released. To use these technologies, but I don't, I don't know that we can protect the dome.

00:26:34 Mr. Adamo

Right. No, I think that would be an ideal way to do it.

00:26:36 Mrs. Adamo

It feels, yeah, it feels like that kind of combination where in one hand, yeah, we don't want them just using Chat GPT or Claude when it's time to write papers, but that's one piece of what you can do with it. And so, them having some familiarity to use some of these other tools or be able to have them work in their favor that aren't necessarily just writing for them, but, but some of these others that are going to make them maybe more equipped to do even more in the future. And have that, you know, it's either it can be hopefully a middle ground too where it's not, hey, I never touched this stuff. I live in the woods or it's all I've ever used and I've never written a paper in my life, you know, finding that middle ground where they can use it as a tool, but not have it do all of their thinking for them.

00:27:25 Mr. Anderson

Yeah.

00:27:26 Mrs Adamo

I mean, I say want to live in the woods. I mean, it sounds good to me. I didn’t mean, to hate on wood living.

00:27:31 Mr. Anderson

There's a lot of us that would like that. I think that what do you see bridge view doing around, you know, in the future, or even now, like to keep kids from like leaning on it when it comes time to write a paper. Do you see in some ways distancing yourself from technology, maybe like Chelsea saying in certain ways, lean in, right, expose the kids to it because you want them to be aware, but that at the same time, like there are ways you need to steer away from it. Are you going to have them write papers by hand? Like what, what does that look like?

00:28:03 Mr. Anderson

Yeah. Well, and that's true all the way. I think that's true all the way through it. Certainly true, even to my 12th grade class, I think it's, you're seeing, yeah, you're seeing in class assignments handwriting make a stronger return. With more urgency, I think, from teachers because their problem is they're having a really tough time assessing, like, is this your own work, you know, how, and I took a lot of grief years and years ago when I decided we were going to do this senior leaving exam, the senior leaving exam was essentially my only rules for it were the question that got put to them they could have never seen before. It had to be fewer than 10 words. And they had three hours to write.

00:28:47 Mr. Adamo

Whoa.

00:28:48 Mrs. Adamo

I don't know if I was aware of that.

00:28:50 Mr. Adamo

I know about that one.

00:28:51 Mr. Anderson

And what's funny is almost every year the same thing happens, which is, you know, we bring the seniors in, we feed them breakfast burritos, we chat with them and kind of make light. And then we, you know, once the clock starts, we turn them loose and they sit down and they write fairly solidly for three hours. And almost every time they walk out of the room, they're like, that was a great question. The point is, you know, what we tell them is you've had 13 years of formal education. You've had 18 years of life, some of which didn't happen here. Tell us, how is it all reconciled? I think the senior thesis is a similar kind of project, but in that case they have a year, right, where they're talking with an advisor, they're doing more reading, they're thinking, they're trying to figure out how to put it all together. And then they've got to write a, you know, a big paper, almost 30 pages. And then present for 20 minutes and take 20 minutes of questions from whoever might like to ask questions. And I think that is hard to fake for using AI. I mean, there's elements of it where AI is, you know, undeniably going to edge in terms of like searching for quotations and things like this. But in terms of establishing a position and then defending it, I think that's the way we're mitigating it is. We want you to know how to use the technology, for instance, in a computer science class or an engineering application or something like that. We, you know, my whole utopia of the glass dome is a utopia because we can't keep it out, but we can bring them into understanding the difference between something else doing the work for you and you doing the work.

00:30:36 Mr. Adamo

Yeah. We hadn't really touched on the senior thesis. That was another big selling point for us. We love that. And I think that has like the culmination of a classical education is really what it's all about, right? Asking what is a good life? What is a life well lived? That's one of the things that I think classical education enables you to really think through and come to a conclusion on which are your values, right? And I think again, it's applicable in the age of AI. I think Ridgeview kind of offers it, not the utopia, right? But I think one of the better approaches, teaching kids to still think for themselves, think critically, think deeply on things, they're going to encounter technology, I think they'll be better equipped to use it. I think they'll be better equipped whatever the future brings for them in their careers, whatever AI does, you know, to all of our jobs. It's never a bad thing to have those skills.

00:31:35 Mr. Anderson

Yeah.

00:31:38 Mrs. Adamo

And I think you talk about like something again of what do you wish you had, you know, going to send them to a school you wish you had gone to, but it was that idea of like for us, I think it was you, you graduate and then you go to college, you graduate high school and you go to college and then you do the next thing and then you do the next thing. And it was just so prescribed and to have a child at 18 really consider and have to put weight into that to determine for themselves, what does that mean? I think we love that idea.

00:32:10 Mr. Anderson

Yeah, just last point on that is I think, you know, every time I hear the next thing, I always think, and this is what I tell students all the time, this is life. Like, yes, of course you're preparing for the next thing, but enjoy this thing because don't get this moment again. And I think that that part of it is so special. So, well, I'm being motion to wrap this up. So yeah, sorry, we kind of went down to, I think an important rabbit hole though about AI because I think the business applications again are undeniable, but I think we're kind of worried about how it forms a mind. So, thank you for indulging me in that.

00:32:54 Mrs. Adamo

Absolutely.

00:32:55 Mr. Adamo

Yeah, fun. It's fun to talk about.

00:32:57 Mr. Anderson

So, if someone is interested in Rocket Jones for, or the Clean Air Lawn Care, how do they find you in the lobby?

00:33:07 Mrs. Adamo

Clean Air Lawn Care. Just tackle me in the parking lot. CleanAirLawnCare.com has contact forms if you would like to be a Clean Air owner. If you are in Fort Collins, we do have a Fort Collins location. So CleanAirLawnCareFortCollins.com is where you could submit a contact form to get an estimate request from Clean Air.

00:33:25 Mr. Adamo

Yeah, and rocketjones.com, we have a contact form there or you can email me Dominick@rocketjones.com, D-O-M-I-N-I-C-K. And yeah, love chatting, grabbing coffee, just talking and getting to know people. So also happy if anyone wants to chat. All right.

00:33:43 Mr. Anderson

Well, great. Thank you both for doing this this morning with us. Yeah, thank you for having us. Yeah, this is very good. And thank you for listening to Hoplite Radio. If you enjoyed this episode, please subscribe to Apple Podcasts, Spotify, I Heart Radio, or your preferred listening app. For more information about Ridgeview Classical Schools, please visit our website at RidgeviewClassical.org.

00:34:04

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