To Think or Reflect Thoughts

Teaching children how to think can be difficult.  In contrast, teaching children to merely reflect the thoughts of others is simple in comparison.  Think about it for a minute.  Requiring children to memorize and repeat correct answers can be done by practice and repetition.  Sometimes it is necessary to learn this way, like in the case of memorizing times tables or equations.  But the way a child learns best and retains knowledge is when he or she can reason and comprehend why things happen.  Knowing how and why helps him or her understand and apply it to their field of knowledge and usefulness.  When a child learns to think for themselves, they achieve a level of growth and autonomy that surpasses students who simply memorize facts and figures.  Even the subject of spelling requires more than mere memorization.  Critiquing words and how they are spelled based upon phonics and rules of the English language requires reasoning abilities.  Teaching thinking necessitates several things.  Using an inquiry method of instruction, where problems are directed to the student and where the student is given time to think and solve is one of them.  Comparison and contrast, evaluation, and questioning are all necessary components in creating thinkers.  Giving the student the ability to evaluate and make judgments teaches them to think for themselves.  If you are asking your child to list, label, match, name, or recall information, you are teaching them to be reflectors of the thinking of others.  But, if your instructional technique leads them to interpret, discriminate, defend, critique, appraise, or explain something, you can be sure you are on the pathway to teaching your child how to think.  This is the challenge of educating the student, but one that reaps great rewards!

Creating Independent Thinkers

In the early years of the current homeschooling trend, the ability of a parent to teach their child academics was firmly challenged by those in the traditional school system. Homeschool skeptics argued that specialists were needed to teach children to read, write, and learn math. The talk in public school faculty lunchrooms frequently centered around a community members decision to home educate rather than to take advantage of all that the public schools had to offer. It is true that the public schools do offer many things to the children in our communities. For some families, a public education is the only alternative. But, when there is a willingness and opportunity for a parent to share in the educational process with their children, and home education is the result, much success and educational growth has been shown to occur. Over time, even many professional educators have admitted that the academic results of homeschooling can not be argued. Time after time, homeschooled children test above the national average in all areas and at all grade levels. If a homeschool family commits to education and spends time focusing on learning, children who are academically competent and who know how to think is the result. Homeschool families have a plethora of resources and methods to choose from. Each family educates using their own unique approach. Because of this, children obtain knowledge and skills at different rates and at widely differing ages. But, in the long run, what could be perceived as a lack of knowledge in an area at one age could mean nothing when looking at the broad view. Children develop naturally and according to their growth and learning spurts when homeschooled. A teacher-parent who educates purposefully within the scope of a child’s natural growth and interests creates a learning environment that is frequently spontaneous. Although a planned curriculum may be given (and reassures the teacher-parent that they are on schedule), a great deal of valuable learning occurs independently by the child outside of the planned lessons. Once a child has been shown how to learn what they need to know, they usually catch the spark and will continue to learn, gathering facts, information, and skills independently along the way. This is the best kind of learning! Learning becomes intrinsically theirs and becomes much more meaningful to them than some facts in a book. Higher levels of applied learning result, and the world awaits! The role of parent then becomes as a guide to stimulate learning, exploration, and an environment conducive to such. Patience, a willingness to answer questions, and the time to show the child how to learn for themselves are traits that will provide great dividends to the future of the child. With the right resources (time, energy, and materials) and attentive parents, the homeschooled child cannot help but take off as a student with great potential!

Achieving Optimal Intellect

Dr. Shinichi Suzuki, the influential teacher of the Suzuki method of music education, spoke frequently of the ability that all children have to learn things well if they were placed in the right environment.  His motto is “any child can learn”.  His methods, though sometimes controversial, make sense to me.  Expanding his concepts to areas beyond music opens the door to new concepts in education.  Believing that any child can achieve optimal intellect, I embarked on a journey to explore ways to help my own children become thinkers and not mere reflectors of the thoughts of others.  As a public school teacher, I knew that some students learned to think, but many who crossed my path were simply satisfied with becoming cookie-cutter students; ones who followed the crowd and interacted and learned just like their peers.  It seemed that if I put my own children through the same process as the norm, the risk of developing reflectors rather than thinkers was great.  During the discovery process, I came across a simple formula for creating children who knew how to think, create, and excel and I was hooked!  This formula was developed by Harold McCurdy and his team of researchers.  They were commissioned by the Smithsonian Institute to discover the recipe for the creation of genius’ throughout history.  The results of their research revealed simple and amazing principles that any parent can implement in their homeschool.  Would you like to know the formula?  Here it is:  1)  provide the child with warm, responsive parents and other significant adults in their life, 2) isolate the child from peers outside of their immediate family, and 3) give the child much freedom to explore and follow their own interests.  Although simple, this formula goes against much of what current culture believes and endorses for raising intelligent children.  But, when these principles are not present, or are only minimally present in the lives of children, it is found to suppress the development of his or her intellect.  Would you like to raise children who can think?  Consider the formula for raising a genius!

The First School

Christians look to the creation of Adam and Eve as an example of individuals made in the image of God.  Their garden home and how they lived in it are a model to the human race.  Adam and Eve were students of the Creator of the universe.  The garden of Eden was their classroom and nature was their textbook.  Can you fathom how amazing it would be to have God as your school teacher?  What an opportunity!  The one who created everything and who had all knowledge taught to His creation the secrets of the universe.  Chemistry, physics, mathematics, astronomy, engineering, biology, art design, history of the universe, music, philosophy, language, are only a sampling of subjects that Adam and Eve studied in their communion with God as their teacher.  As we observe the life of Adam and Eve before sin entered the world, we discover that God commissioned  Adam and Eve to take care of the garden [Genesis 2:15].  Although they lived in a sinless, perfect world, they were not left to languish in a field of flowers!  They were given the assignment of learning the secrets of the universe [study].  Useful employment was given to them, as they were to take care of the garden [work].  God’s love reflected upon their hearts as they cared for one another in perfect love [service to others].  God designed the lessons He taught them in their Eden home to teach them completely, encompassing their intellect, physical strength, and spirit in communion with Him and with one another.  The garden of Eden represented all that God desired for mankind.  The desire of His heart was that Adam and Eve would have children, grandchildren, and future descendants that would establish homes and schools just like the one He modeled for them, and that they would reflect the knowledge of His glory.  The first school was of the God of creation.