Back Among the Living

Okay, I am back among the living. I have been under the weather for nearly a month now and so many things have just been put on hold while I just muddled through the necessities. But after trips to three different doctors, several different tests, and even more medications, I am feeling much, much better. Yay God! I promise to be back to posting the first of the week. Please enjoy the last installment of quotes on education in the meantime.

Have you read any of them so far? It is wild how differently people look at learning. The common theme I have noticed is the emphasis on the importance of creativity over mere knowledge. And the importance of learning by doing instead of learning by memorizing. How does that line up with how we educate our children, and ourselves for that matter?....since we are all still learning something. Hopefully.

In our schools we promote conformity, not creativity. We make sure our children learn the order of the US presidents and about Greek Mythology, but place little emphasis on life skills and common sense. Their stringent adherence to standardized curriculum limits how far children can excel in their learning.

My daughter tried getting me to purchase a science curriculum a month or so ago. I tried to tell her we don't need one. She was in the third grade last year, and her CAT test scores placed her at the seventh grade level for science. If we had followed a curriculum, she would have never been giving the opportunity to learn the material that she mastered at four grade levels above her own. And she did well because she was learning about things she had an interest to learn.

Anyways, the purpose of these quotes is to allow you to think outside the box in the ways you teach your children. This isn't just for homeschoolers. You are capable of teaching your children new things every day, even if they attend public or private school. We learn something from everything we encounter. Take advantage of it. Ignite their curiosity. Promote their creativity. Encourage them to become excellent at something they enjoy!


John Dewey
Education, therefore, is a process of living and not a preparation for future living.

Maria Mitchell
We have a hunger of the mind which asks for knowledge of all around us, and the more we gain, the more is our desire; the more we see, the more we are capable of seeing.

Mortimer Adler
The purpose of learning is growth, and our minds, unlike our bodies, can continue growing as we continue to live.

Anatole France
Nine tenths of education is encouragement.


Ralph Waldo Emerson
Skill to do comes of doing.

Simone Weil
The joy of learning is as indispensable in study as breathing is in running. Where it is lacking there are no real students, but only poor caricatures of apprentices who, at the end of their apprenticeship, will not even have a trade.


Vernon Cooper
These days people seek knowledge, not wisdom. Knowledge is of the past, wisdom is of the future.

Virgil
As the twig is bent the tree inclines.


Ralph Waldo Emerson
Life is a succession of lessons, which must be lived to be understood