Whenever my mother talked about her motherhood, she used to say, "I did the best I could with what I had." She was right--she did, and I've come to realize that I did too. Whenever I start to fall into the guilt trip, I just say that phrase over and over to myself.
Recently, when Hal and I were talking about the end of our homeschool days, he said to me, "Do you want to know what you didn't give your kids?" (I didn't know if I wanted to know). "You didn't give them hate of learning." (A twist on the phrase coined by Oliver De Mille called, Love of Learning.) Well, I had to admit that that was true.
Jasmyn, Amber, Anna, and Hal reenacting the skirmish at Lexington Green, Massachusetts
Hal and I both received a love of books and learning from our mothers, but I will not go back that far--
Sometime in the early years of our marriage Hal and I bought books instead of a car. We spent $1000 on the latest Encyclopedia Britannica set, another smaller encyclopedia set, and the Great Books of the Western World, and a few other small sets of books as well. In this era before the internet these books were like gold to us, and we've filled bookcases full of books ever since.
Two of my favorite childhood books that teach a lesson, Miss Suzy...
...and The King with Six Friends
My earliest memory of formally teaching Amber was when she was one year old. My children may remember the poster board rectangles with National Geographic magazine photos of animals pasted to them. I used these like huge flashcards to teach her "tiger", "elephant", etc. Then when she was about two and a half we began "Teach Your Baby to Read, " which didn't last long, but it was fun to do a little more structured teaching with her as my student.
Before anyone was old enough for school we read a lot, and listened to music and musical stories together--classical pieces; sing-alongs; old musical storybook LP records from my childhood, like The Happy Prince and The Ugly Duckling; the little DIsney storybooks with little records or cassettes; all the church scripture stories in books and cassettes; the Brite music cassettes and books, especially the Standing Tall series, Safety Kids, and Take Your Hat Off.
My children loved listening to stories like this:
Choosing to be in charge of the complete education of my children was just a natural extension of my passion to share the world with them. Over the years I've tried to articulate this passion, but found that these two quotes say it better than I could:
The Workshop of the Gods--
“If we work upon marble, it will perish; if we work upon brass, time will efface it; if we rear temples, they will crumble into dust; but if we work upon immortal minds and instill into them just principles, we are then engraving that upon tablets which no time will efface, but will brighten and brighten to all eternity. ” --Daniel Webster
"It is an art to work with and teach children. It is the highest creative pursuit. In no other situation are you working with such a majestic medium. The outcomes are so far beyond any skills or application you put into them. All other finished products or results of our creativity begin to descend from the height of their beauty the minute they are completed. Not only are they inanimate, but dust, decay, and the elements lessen the illumined glow they once had; the bright newness fades.
"Not so with children. The masterpiece is ever fresh and new, not only enhancing what you gave, but creating itself -- the product contributing to the process, ever expanding beyond the limits of even the best of our efforts. How hallowed is the studio where such work occurs. Do we understand even in minute ways the meaning of this remarkable gift and setting where Heavenly Father places mothers?
"Few on earth could contemplate even the first step on the path of creativity that teaches us to be like the Creator. The creative process of nurturing, teaching, inspiring, and inviting our children is the workshop of the gods. No other place, but our homes, can such a workshop be found. And such a Master Craftsman is always at our side waiting to fill our minds and hearts with every step of the process. Always there at our bidding, we work hand in hand with God to uncover and release the form that has always been, yet cannot be without us." Karen Kindrick Cox
Amber and Trenton at the Bean Life Science Museum, BYU
One of the stories that Karen shared when we spoke together a conferences and workshops showed the contrast between the first year they homeschooled and the year they began EPIC Adventures--with the entire year in a theme. She said that at the end of that first year they threw all their school workbooks away. (Which is pretty amazing, since Karen is sentimental about most everything). She thought about how their entire school year was now in the trash, and that didn't sit too well with her. Afterwards she learned that worksheets don't teach anyone anything, (and they're pretty boring).
Our workshop illustration of this story says best what I feel my children have received over the years:
"Education Is Not the Filling of a pail,
but the lighting of a fire."
Click here to see the video I made about lighting fires (Karen is narrating it):
No comments:
Post a Comment