Cultivation
Many home educators consider teaching a daunting task because they do not have time to learn or master all the subjects their children should know. The truth is that they don’t have to. By creating a context for learning, establishing a solid foundation in reading, and providing access to information, the whole world is open to students.
- Andrea G. Schwartz
From The Kingdom Driven Family Blog:
My adult son and I like to exchange audio books with each other. Each of us spends a lot of time driving and these are good ways to redeem that time. Lately I have been listening to one he shared about George Washington. My son knows more about Washington than most people, having made him the subject of much study. I can honestly say that I learned more about our first president from this son whom I homeschooled, than I knew while I was teaching him.
I did not give my son a love of history. God gets the credit for giving him a good mind and the motivation to pursue his interest. My son gets the credit for using the gifts he was given. What I can take credit for is creating an environment for learning and encouraging him, and my other children, to read more than just one book on any given subject. I also emphasized the importance of consulting primary source material in addition to biographies and historical accounts written much later than actual events. I also made it clear that, as a result, they would be in a better position to come to their own conclusions rather than just parrot mine. In truth, when they pursued their interests, they often surpassed my knowledge in various areas.
My fifteen-year-old daughter and I were at the movies watching a film that dramatized a WWII spy mission to capture a German enigma-decoding machine. Much of what was happening went over my head and I muttered, “I don’t understand!” She quickly explained what had confused me. How did she know all about submarines when as her teacher I had not made this a focus of study? Later, she explained that on trips to the library she had read a number of books on the subject and that she and her dad had watched a documentary about submarines.
- Andrea G. Schwartz
Andrea Schwartz is Chalcedon’s family and Christian education advocate, and the author of eight books including: A House for God: Building a Kingdom-Driven Family, The Biblical Trustee Family: Understanding God’s Purpose for Your Household, Empowered: Developing Strong Women for Kingdom Service, Woman of the House: A Mother’s Role in Building a Christian Culture, and The Homeschool Life: Discovering God’s Way to Family-Based Education. She’s also the co-host of the Out of the Question podcast, and Homeschooling Helps (weekly live Facebook event). She can be reached at [email protected].
