Recipe for Genius

Guided, Planned, and Purposeful Learning

Thoughts on Dr. Raymond Moore's belief in delayed formal academics:

It seems that the Moore's emphasized that learning begins at birth. Some of their books outline concepts to be taught starting from birth. They share age-appropriate activities and events that help a child achieve appropriate milestones for their age. So, it seems that their idea of delayed education speaks of "formal" and "school-like" learning. Essentially, most early school concepts can be taught in a variety of ways. Teaching a child to write using finger-paints on a large sheet of paper uses different motor skills (more appropriate) than using a pencil and  paper. The key is to keep learning age appropriate and to avoid burn-out.

In the beginning of my homeschool years I was fortunate to be able to attend a week-end series of lectures by Dr. and Mrs. Moore. One of the key points that struck me was hearing Dr. Moore emphasize that from his experience, most early-schooled children might do VERY well with early learning when taught formally, but that by 4th grade they were generally burned out and it was nearly impossible to bring back the love of learning, exploration, etc. that most of us value so highly in childhood learning. So, although a child may seem to be doing well and advancing properly --- it could be possible that long-term damage could occur in the form of burn-out.

Guided, planned, purposeful experiences that are age appropriate are never out of line. I believe it is wrong to hold a child back when they want to learn. But, I would encourage them to learn in a relaxed, non-paper and pencil, bookish manner. It is so much more fun and interesting for everyone (parent and child) if collections, cooking experiences, field trips, building, etc. projects are done to create that learning rather than relying upon a book.

Warm Parenting & Delayed Academics

In our family, we chose to follow the Moore Formula approach to education. The focus on work, study, and service helped us keep a balance in our family life while presenting the value of learning to our children in every facet of our lives. I believe that the Moore approach, more than any other, allows learning to become integral to the whole child and the complete family system. With this approach, education is not placed in a box. Instead, the entire world is open to the child in a way that most other types of educational systems cannot replicate.

Sometimes parents who choose to follow the Moore Formula find that they can feel like a fish swimming up the stream instead of going with the flow. That's because they are thinking and teaching outside the norm. Our culture and the educational system are creating learning environments that take the parent out of the educational formula at an early age (preschool). One goal of the present public system of education is to do this at increasingly earlier ages. As homeschool parents, sometimes we forget that these are external, artificial pressures and we take them upon ourselves. Research shows that children who's parents practice delayed- academics later rather than early academics, catch-up with and exceed peers who have been educated formally and  starting at a young age. Not only are delayed-study children beneficiaries academically, but research shows that they exhibit more skills in inquiry and higher-level thinking than their traditionally educated peers. Traditionally "schooled" AND traditionally "schooled at home" children who are not taught by the work, service, study model of delayed academics that Dr. Moore promoted have been found to exhibit signs (across the board) of burn-out by 4th grade. These are only a few examples of the excellence that results in children who received an education with delayed academics.

"School Can Wait" is an example of a very well documented and highly researched book which proves Dr. Moore's educational philosophy. This book is highly research-oriented and the result of a $257,000 federal grant which thoroughly documented the importance of unbroken continuity of parental attachment wherever possible and the dangers of formal schooling until at least eight to ten. In it Dr. Moore states that:

"The preponderance of evidence indicates that the key role of a parent throughout the years of childhood is simply to be the kind of warm, responsive, and relatively consistent person to whom a child can safely become attached. Early development and learning are actively dependent on this relationship. Parents are chiefly responsible for a child's early learning by their attitudes and responses to the child in frequent interactions." [School Can Wait, page 47].

The Moore Formula encourages warm, responsive parenting and a delay in formal academics until eight or ten years of age. It is a plan that has proved itself over and over again. It really does work!

Delayed Academics

Thoughts on Dr. Raymond Moore's belief in delayed formal academics:

It seems that the Moore's emphasized that learning begins at birth. Some of their books outline concepts to be taught starting from birth. They share age-appropriate activities and events that help a child achieve appropriate milestones for their age. So, it seems that their idea of delayed education speaks of "formal" and "school-like" learning. Essentially, most early school concepts can be taught in a variety of ways. Teaching a child to write using finger-paints on a large sheet of paper uses different motor skills (more appropriate) than using a pencil and  paper. The key is to keep learning age appropriate and to avoid burn-out.

In the beginning of my homeschool years I was fortunate to be able to attend a week-end series of lectures by Dr. and Mrs. Moore. One of the key points that struck me was hearing Dr. Moore emphasize that from his experience, most early-schooled children might do VERY well with early learning when taught formally, but that by 4th grade they were generally burned out and it was nearly impossible to bring back the love of learning, exploration, etc. that most of us value so highly in childhood learning. So, although a child may seem to be doing well and advancing properly --- it could be possible that long-term damage could occur in the form of burn-out.

Guided, planned, purposeful experiences that are age appropriate are never out of line. I believe it is wrong to hold a child back when they want to learn. But, I would encourage them to learn in a relaxed, non-paper and pencil, bookish manner. It is so much more fun and interesting for everyone (parent and child) if collections, cooking experiences, field trips, building, etc. projects are done to create that learning rather than relying upon a book.

Teaching is Inspiring, Motivating, and Inducing

"Teaching is inspiring a student rather than filling him with facts. It is responding to him rather than demanding of him. It is motivating him to explore on his own rather than controlling his explorations. It is inducing him to think, rather than repeating others' thoughts. Teaching is leading others to be like you --- and more. It is finding lessons in everything you see, hear, smell, taste, and touch, and bringing them together to give deeper meaning and fulfillment to life." 

Dr. Raymond Moore

Home-Style Teaching, A Handbook for Parents and Teachers

Recipe for Home Teaching

As a new school year starts for many, it seems timely to review the core "recipe" for homeschooling. I have always appreciated the one by Dr. Raymond and Dorothy Moore, early advocates of home education. Here's their recipe for home-school teaching:

"The requirements are not complex. Parents need only to be loving, responsive, and reasonably consistent, and salt these qualities with a little imagination, common sense, and willingness to follow a few simple suggestions...And don't worry about the opinions of neighbors who don't know or care about the real needs of children. Just be kind to them. Have your children be helpful in your home and in the neighborhood. Visit the old and infirm and ill. Do favors for others without asking any in return. Soon your 'strange antics' will be forgotten...or admired." 

They remind us that:

• "In one sense you are teaching all your waking moments --- as models to your offspring. Yet while some parents are more diligent than others, none need to formally teach a full school day."

And continue with this:

• "Much more important is your working with your children in physical work, helping them learn practical skills and the nobility of work --- building character qualities of initiative, industry, neatness, order, responsibility, and dependability, which are hard to find in even one of ten children or young adults today."

And there's more!

• "Along with these grosser values you can by precept and example teach manners and graces which today are rare --- kindness, thoughtfulness, tact, forgiveness, generosity, and a just plain kind of for-others love. This is seldom done in schools these days. Teach therm how to walk tall, how to listen closely, how to speak graciously. Paul was not gesturing idly when he wrote Philippians 4:8, 'Finally, brethren, whatsoever things are true, whatsoever things are pure, whatsoever things are lovely, whatsoever things are of good report;...think on these things.'"

Using the Moore Formula of work, study, and service, children have been found to excel academically and socially. For more on this subject, it's recommended that you establish your foundation and philosophy for homeschooling by reading several of the books Raymond and Dorothy Moore have written on homeschooling. 

The quotes above are from the book "Home-Spun Schools" page 12 - 13.

True Homeschooling is Tutorial

“True home schooling is tutorial, hand-made, customized to each child. Such parents respond to their children in a loving, informal way, a balance between systematic structure where needed and a great deal of freedom for youngsters to explore.”
  
~ Raymond S. Moore