Community Highlights: Meet Robert Bortins of Classical Conversations

Today we’d like to introduce you to Robert Bortins.

Hi Robert, please kick things off for us with an introduction to yourself and your story.
I like to think that my entrepreneurial journey began when I was a kid. My mom and dad were unhappy with the state of modern education-as my mom puts it, they felt we were “living in the wrong century and with the wrong tribe”-and so they decided to practice the classical model of education at home. My brothers and I were homeschooled from kindergarten through high school.

Now, when you’re homeschooled, you’ll develop a certain set of character traits out of sheer necessity. You can’t hide in the back of the classroom and slink unobserved by mom through the lessons at home. Excuses won’t fly. There’s no blaming the dog’s sharp teeth when you fail to turn in your assignment. And if you have siblings, they’re your responsibility, too. You’ll develop self-discipline, self-motivation, and a sense of leadership when you’re home-educated.

And if homeschooling teaches you how to persevere, then classical education teaches you how to learn. Classical education is based on the trivium (Latin for “three ways” or “three roads”), a set of basic skills that teach the learner how to remember, how to think, and how to speak-the essentials of learning! For most of Western civilization, students were taught the trivium. From Cicero to Frederick Douglas, classical education has taught its students how to grow in knowledge and wisdom.

I couldn’t have possibly known it at the time, but homeschooling and classical education gave me a solid foundation for entrepreneurship. I got into the college of my choice and studied engineering, supporting myself (and, on occasion, my family) while also paying my way via a co-op program. Afterward, I worked as a management trainee for UPS and then as a plant engineer for Easy Gardener. The work was interesting, but I wanted more out of life-something meaningful and challenging, something I could help build from the ground up.

I asked, and God answered.

Back when I was a high school freshman at home, my mom had begun developing her own curriculum (classical education was relatively unknown at the time, and resources for parents were severely lacking) and building a support network for like-minded families. She called the program Classical Conversations. I was the very first student.

Classical Conversations was a success! Parents wanted a real solution to the problems of public schools, problems private schools, charter schools, and most other homeschool programs had only replicated. The business just kept growing and growing. Pretty soon, my mom was looking for more hands on deck. Eventually, I agreed to help out and moved back to North Carolina.

I learned the ins and outs of entrepreneurship from my mom, and after a year, I was appointed CEO, handling the day-to-day operations of the business. Since 2012, Classical Conversations has grown by nearly 300 percent, from forty to fifty states in the USA and to more than fifty countries worldwide, forty-five thousand families strong.

I’m incredibly grateful to my parents and to God. Their decision to classically educate our family at home has been such a tremendous blessing, one that I’m passing down to my own three children with my wife, April, and one that I strive to share with families across the world.

Alright, so let’s dig a little deeper into the story – has it been an easy path overall, and if not, what were the challenges you’ve had to overcome?
One day, when I was a sophomore at Clemson University, my mom called me out of the blue with news: she’d decided to throw everything into Classical Conversations and transform the then-informal program into a real business.

And then she gave me the bad news. She told me that I’d have to pay for the rest of college by myself. Now, I admit I was scared for my future. How would I finish my degree? How would I survive?

Fortunately, my upbringing had prepared me well for this situation. First, I got a job. Then, I made a plan. One semester, I worked, and the next, I went to school. I surfed sofas and lived in closets and out of cars. I counted coins and rationed food. My life hinged on how well I could balance my budget.

Those character traits I’d developed, the self-discipline and the self-reliance, and those skills I’d learned, to think and to speak, saw me through this adversity. I found I could juggle a job and a college education. I could balance a budget. I could endure the present because I’d learned to set my sights on the future. My parents may have tossed me a curveball, but they also taught me to swing for the fences.

I wouldn’t have succeeded without that cultivation.

Alright, so let’s switch gears a bit and talk business. What should we know?
Classical Conversations is a homeschool program that takes a unique community-based approach, offering parents the tools to educate their children using the classical Christian model of education. We’re Christ-centered, and our mission is to know God and make Him known.

I’m particularly proud of our mission and beliefs. Our beliefs guide our curriculum, training, and services. We believe that God trusts parents with their children and education is the responsibility of the family, but also that the support of community is a blessing and together is the best way to learn. To that end, we’ve structured our program around weekly touchpoints in local communities with like-minded parents and their students. In community, the parents work with trained tutor-parents to deliver the curriculum at home for the rest of the week while the students build lifelong friendships and develop lasting skills.

We’d love to hear about how you think about risk-taking.
As a former industrial engineer, risk mitigation was my bread and butter. Safety was my absolute priority. You don’t gamble when there’s worker’s lives at stake and heavy machinery with moving parts present, and you do everything in your power to avoid the slightest possibility of failure.

However, as an entrepreneur and a CEO, I have found that risk is inevitable-and sometimes welcome! In fact, the leap from engineer to entrepreneur was fraught with peril. Success wasn’t guaranteed. Accepting the position would cost any advancement in the field in which I’d invested years of education. But that major risk paid off, and I’d gladly take it again.

Risk is a fact of life for entrepreneurs, but with care, you can optimize risk outcomes over the long run. Gather facts before you take risks. The more you know, the better. Know when to walk away from a bet. Weigh the outcomes. It’s a cliché, but you have to ask yourself: is the risk actually worth the reward? And make sure you can afford the worst-case scenario.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://classicalconversations.com/
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/therobertbshow/ and https://www.instagram.com/classical_conversations/
• Other: https://refiningrhetoric.com/