For the Love of Homeschooling...

"Earth and sky, woods and fields, lakes and rivers, the mountain and the sea, are excellent schoolmasters, and teach some of us more than we can ever learn from books." - John Lubbock

"The best teacher is the one who suggests rather than dogmatizes, and inspires his listener with the wish to teach himself." -- Edward Bulwer-Lytton
"My heart is singing for joy this morning! A miracle has happened! The light of understanding has shone upon my little pupil's mind, and behold, all things are changed!" Anne Sullivan "The object of education is to prepare the young to educate themselves throughout their lives." ~Robert Maynard Hutchins
"I am beginning to suspect all elaborate and special systems of education. They seem to me to be built up on the supposition that every child is a kind of idiot who must be taught to think." -Anne Sullivan
This year I have been blessed with the opportunity to home school my younger brother Malachi. Some of you may have seen my post about it at the beginning of the school year. I have really enjoyed working with him and to be honest, I have learned a lot as well.☺ I believe my mom had me work with him because she knew that it would be a unique learning experience for me. As a first-born I tend to be...ummm...well, a little bit of... a perfectionist. OK, I am a big perfectionist! Momma was quite clever in how she assigned Malachi to me. He is a very lively, energetic, curious, bright(no I am not prejudice:), and did I mention energetic???, little boy. She knew that my Utopia view of what schooling was supposed to look like would greatly be altered. Even though I firmly believe that there are certain subjects that must be done whether they are considered fun or not(i.e. mathematics,grammar,spelling,writing), there is a lot of room for creativity when it comes to other subjects such as history, science, and social studies. For example, I have a large children's book that has lots of pictures of plants and insects that I started reading to Malachi the beginning of the year. He retained some of the facts that I read to him but nothing spectacular. One day, I was outside in my garden area checking on some of my herbs. Malachi follows me around everywhere and that day was no exception. He asked me what I was doing and I began explaining to him the different plants and what I used them for. I broke off leaves of several of the herbs and let him eat them. He was fascinated, he was experiencing hands on learning, he was retaining the information that I was communicating, and I was... ecstatic!

I am so grateful for parents that encourage me to think "outside the box" and to go out on a limb.

The other day I was telling my mom how glad I was that she allowed me to work with Malachi and she just laughed and said, "I am just trying to spare my future grandchildren the perfectionist mother that you had." ☺

Hope you all have a great weekend!

M.E.