A New Direction...

We did it! Our first month of full homeschooling!

If you’ve been following along for a while, you’ll remember we’ve been doing a hybrid homeschool option for the last few years. And it was truly AMAZING. So amazing, in fact, that I fell head-over-heels in love with homeschooling. This coming from someone who said I’d NEVER homeschool (that’s another story for another day :) ) I ended up loving our home days so much that I got, well, a little greedy…I wanted more! Add to that a desire to have some added flexibility with travel opportunities, and our latest adventure in full-time homeschooling was officially birthed!

I kind of marvel that I get to do this. I treasure that I get to soak up these hours with these precious boys. It’s not for everyone. But I feel made for this and just love getting this extra time with them before they’re grown and gone out of the house.

One moment in particular was really meaningful to me this month. I remember one afternoon the boys started shouting and pointing out the kitchen window. You would have thought a dinosaur had magically appeared in the backyard the way they were carrying on. Turns out a ladybug had landed on the window pane. A ladybug. It flew away before they could get a closer look and they were really bummed. So Thomas wandered off and suddenly reappeared with a giant magnifying glass. I asked him what it was for since the bug was gone. He climbed up on the counter and placed the magnifying glass in the window sill and turned to me with genuine spark in his big, brown eyes (a spark that I’ve been fighting to kindle brighter). He had this big, goofy smile and said “I’m leaving this right here JUST in case we see another ladybug land here another day so we can examine it!”

This was huge for my heart on that particular day. It just gave me a little confirmation I was needing that learning and engagement was and IS happening. That doing this work of education a different way is ok. Made me think of this quote I love from Charlotte Mason: “The question is not, -- how much does the youth know? when he has finished his education -- but how much does he care?”

This seemingly minuscule ladybug moment was huge for me and it immediately birthed these words in my heart and soul. This is what I hope I can say to my children when they are grown:

I wasn’t here to turn you into a good student, although I hoped you’d become one.

I wasn’t here to fill you with facts from a standardized list, although you learned to discuss and engage with many, many facts on this journey.

I was here as your partner. I was here to help you uncover what you cared about. What you were curious about. What you were passionate about.

I was here to help you wonder at the world, not memorize facts to pass a test.

I was here to help awaken in you such a depth of awe at history and the sciences and math and literature and music that you couldn’t help but sneak a flashlight to bed to read just a little bit more about dinosaurs and the history of the horse.

I wasn’t here to fill you with my agenda, although I had to fight to remind my controlling self of that.

I was here to help you grow into a good thinker and to examine lots of different ideas with gusto and rigor. 

I was here to help you learn to love people well.

I was here to help you learn that you are a person with unique ideas and questions. You have a voice. You have an imagination. You have tucked inside of your mind all kinds of treasures waiting to be unleashed upon the world.

I was here to protect play and exploration and adventure and curiosity while you were young—and even when you weren’t so young. 

And yes, I was here to guide you in the study of all the traditional “academics” that together would help you see and care about and work in a big wide world.

I was here to help you see and care. Not just know.

Ok, so enough of my sappy mama dreams :)

I’ll wrap up with this: I don’t for a minute believe that there is any one guaranteed path to a great education. Great educations can happen in public schools. Great educations can happen in private schools. Great educations can happen in home schools. 

But I personally do believe that one common thread unites all great educations. I believe that all great educations involve passionate adults who help kindle a spark and inspire curiosity and imagination in young learners. Any one of us who loves a child in our life can be that sort of adult. We may not all be a child’s primary teacher. But we can all be a child’s primary awakener. We can all do little things every day in the life of a child to help awaken imagination, encourage them to explore and make messes, and help them discover and celebrate their unique abilities, talents and skills. We can, every single one of us, help spark loves and interests in children that can last a lifetime. The first step is to simply kindle our own adult interests and skills. To be lifelong learners and wonderers ourselves. And that is, I believe, the heart of a true education. It has no walls. It doesn’t come in a box with an expiration date. It’s an atmosphere of a life. It’s a lifelong posture of the mind and the imagination that trickles down from the oldest among us to the youngest. It’s lifelong engagement with this unseen current of thought upon which all ideas, beauty, art, and questions are carried, from the beginning till the end of time. How amazing that we get even a moment to engage with and get swept up in that current!

Onward to February!