Generally, I'm not really the support group type. I am fairly, and confidently, introverted, and sitting in a crowded living room making chit-chat is simply not my cup of tea. But, with a steamy cup of Celestial Seasoning Gingerbread herbal in hand, I learned some things last night that will truly help me on this journey. And no, it wasn't about chore charts. (ick)Our guest speaker runs a homeschool/co-op hybrid for the high school aged. We were there to learn how to manage academic instruction in those all-important teenage years, but our speaker started by bluntly stating that her organization would not be "our answer".
What followed was a gentle, inspiring, and reasoned argument for making academics just a portion of our focus. Relationship with God and with others, and practical skills need to figure prominently in our goals.
In other words, our goal ought not only to be to raise up learned scholars, but to guide our children to become young adults who not only have a head for knowledge, but know how to use knowledge (both scholarly and practical) for their own good, and the good of the world.
While we may be able to get that core book work done in three hours or less, the rest of the day ought to be devoted in personal development, service to others, work that teaches responsibility, and sharing in running the family household. And don't forget to leave some time to lose oneself in that new novel. :-)
Her words were not in the vein of keeping the girls at home while the boys go off to college. And neither would she advocate Christian teens being continually sheltered between their co-ops and church's youth groups and the like. On the contrary, we need to be in the world, hardening our children off to the realities which surround us, and helping them develop a heart for the hurting.
I am sure I am not giving due justice to our speaker with these few rambling, but I put it here to remind myself to widen my perspective.
It isn't just about the right math program.
1 comments:
I couldn't agree more! I have to keep reminding myself, however, that my main goals are teaching my children where to find information when they need it, how to evaluate it and how to use it appropriately.
There is no way a person could possibly know all the information s/he will need to know for whatever it is s/he is going to do in life. But being able to sort through the mass of information is a critical skill that the schools don't seem to be able to teach.
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