I'm a trained teacher.
A few months ago I flipped through my ancient portfolio–the culminating project required of teacher trainees at the university I attended. I spied my philosophy of education. I scanned it. I laughed a little at my words and the praises my profs penned in the margins. I knew so much before I started teaching.
I frequently hear teacher-turned-homeschool moms state reasons why they chose home education. I chose this way because of apathy, indifference, and disconnect. High school students would slump into my classroom and plead, "Please. Please, don't make us think."
These weren't the truant, drug-using variety. These were academic students. Students who wanted and worked for As and Bs. Burned-out-brains who did everything they could to avoid creative and critical thinking. The goal was the grade.
Something has gone awry.
Throughout my own high school and college years I had the opportunity to volunteer in four kindergarten classrooms, to teach preschool, and to care for toddlers in a daycare. Of course the nose-wiping and tattle-tailing took a toll, but the enthusiasm of finding a single spider spinning a web was contagious. Everything was exciting. An adventure.
What happens to these once-curious kids?
One day I gave my high school students a project–something about analyzing and illustrating Ralph Waldo Emerson quotes. They complained and whined, "Can we just have a worksheet?" I thought I knew the problem: they were lazy.They didn't want to complete a task requiring individuality and creative thinking. But the real problem wasn't laziness. They had lost their curiosity.
The revelation resulted in resolve. I remember asking. Dear God, if you ever give me children, help me. Help me to preserve and grow the gift you give. The gift of curiosity.
In the next nine posts I will be discussing ways to cultivate curiosity as well as how to implement a delight-directed homeschool.
Day 1: Why You Need to Cultivate Curiosity in Your Children
Day 2 : Inquisitive and Quizzed: Using Questions to Cultivate Curiosity in Your Kids
Day 3: How to Keep Wonder Alive in Your Homeschool
Day 4: 25 Ways to Cultivate Curiosity in Your Children
Day 5: Cultivate Curiosity by Reading Great Books Together
Day 6: A Delight Driven Education
Day 7: What Does a Delight Directed Study Look Like?
Day 8 : Free Tools for Delight Directed Studies
Day 9 : Foundation Education
Day 10: Questions and Answers
Ami ~ Once again I can relate to you in such a big way. While I didn’t teach high school (I taught elem.), I found the whole system was just broken, and (like you say) the curiosity and wonder was missing from children’s lives.
I can’t wait to read your posts!!!
Did we teach in the same school Ami?? Great topic. I’m looking forward to it!
Hello! I found this series through Kris at Weird Unsocialized Homeschoolers. I am really looking forward to these posts.
Hear,hear! the two teachers in this household couldn’t, agree more!
Your assessment of today’s children is sadly very true. That’s one of the main reasons we decided to home educate our children. We didn’t want them to lose that love of learning that God instills in every person. We wanted to, in your words, “cultivate creativity.” I am so excited to read your series. 🙂
One question (which you may answer in your series, but I wanted to ask in case you didn’t), in delight-led learning, how do you ensure that you are fulfilling the requirements your state has for home education? My oldest is in third grade this year and this will be our first year of state testing. I am a little nervous (and trying so hard not to be!). I love the idea of delight-led learning, but I am not sure my kids would intentionally dive into fractions or sentence structure! 😉 How would you go about making sure that they are learning what they need to learn by when the state says they need to know it?
Thanks so much! Many blessings 🙂