Does Every Child Love to Learn?
Saying every child loves to learn is a bold statement to believe if the child in front of you actively resists writing. Or math. Or they’re generally disinterested in whatever they deem “schoolish.”
But it’s true. Inside each of us is a natural desire to learn.
You feel a creative itch and take up quilting. You wake up curious about what happened in the news overnight. You want more beauty in your home so you learn container gardening. And so on.
The same is true for our children. They hunger to learn and enjoy doing it.
But sometimes that hunger is inadvertently overlooked or stifled.
Joy is lost and our homeschools flounder.
What sucks the joy out of learning?
- Dull, irrelevant tasks
- Hurried learning
- Too much challenge
- Loss of autonomy
Pause and scan your environment. Is joy happening? Where? What’s causing joy? Who’s engaged and deeply involved? Can you lean into it more?
Rekindle the flame to find the sweet spot that brings joy and skill development together.
Reverse Dictation
One of our favorite tools for growing young writers is Reverse Dictation.
We take an existing passage from a beloved book and mess it up with spelling and punctuation errors. Then we turn the student loose to play editor, cleaning up the mess we made!
Try it using a passage from Anne of Green Gables. Put on your editor’s cap, and see how many errors you can spot and correct in the passage below (the answer key is at the bottom of this post).
Here’s the passage:
gilbert blith wasnt used to puting hisself out to make a gurl look at him and meeting with falure she shoud look at him that redhaired shurley girl with the littel pointed chin and the big eyes that werent like the eyez of any other girl in avonley scool
Look for misspellings, absent commas, periods, apostrophes and more! Give yourself a penny (or piece of candy) for each correct correction!
Works for your kids too. Imagine teaching a lesson about apostrophes and capitalized letters using a passage like this. Your kids will get the smug superiority feeling of correcting someone else’s mistakes all while locking in their own writing skills!
For more ideas, try our Practice Pages!
Corrected Copy
Gilbert Blythe wasn’t used to putting himself out to make a girl look at him and meeting with failure. She should look at him, that red-haired Shirley girl with the little pointed chin and the big eyes that weren’t like the eyes of any other girl in Avonlea school.
[Podcast #342] Brave Learning and Academics
What if academic standards didn’t have to threaten your homeschool rhythm?
In this Brave Writer podcast episode, we explore how to translate grade-level expectations into the rich, lived learning already happening in your home. From Poetry Teatime to bird watching, baking, narration, read-alouds, and everyday conversations, we look at how whole experiences often contain the very skills listed in scope-and-sequence documents. Rather than turning homeschool into school-at-home, we can use standards as information, not intimidation.
Join us as we make peace with checklists, protect our children’s investment in learning, and celebrate the evidence already unfolding in daily life.
Show Notes
When Academic Standards Make You Panic
Have you ever looked at a list of grade-level standards and felt your shoulders climb toward your ears?
There they are: the skills your child is supposed to master, the content they are supposed to know, the sequence they are supposed to follow. The language sounds official. The list looks long. Suddenly, the cozy read-alouds, the nature walks, the poetry, the baking, the big conversations in the car all seem suspiciously unmeasurable.
We know that feeling.
Academic standards can be useful. They can remind us of topics we may not have touched yet. They can help us translate our homeschool life for charter schools, portfolio reviews, or state requirements. They can even offer reassurance.
But standards are not the same thing as learning.
Learning Is Not a Checklist
A checklist can be helpful when we are cleaning a bathroom. Wipe the sink. Scrub the tub. Empty the trash. Done.
Children do not learn like bathrooms get cleaned.
A child’s mind is not a collection of unfinished chores. Learning grows through curiosity, connection, repetition, surprise, appetite, and investment. A child who cares about measuring the distance from the front door to the mailbox may absorb measurement more deeply than a child forced through a worksheet before breakfast.
That does not mean we ignore standards. It means we refuse to let them become the boss of the homeschool.
Start with the Whole
Many academic standards are written as parts: identify punctuation, answer who/what/where questions, compare units of measurement, explain historical groups, recognize spelling patterns.
But homeschool life often begins with the whole.
A child who listens to read-alouds, narrates stories, laughs over poems, writes notes, plays games, bakes muffins, tracks birds, builds with Legos, and asks questions about history is already living inside a web of academic skills.
Poetry Teatime may include rhythm, vocabulary, punctuation, oral reading, interpretation, and literary language. A bird-watching habit may include observation, classification, migration, habitat, animal behavior, geography, data collection, and narration. Baking may include fractions, sequencing, measurement, chemistry, and patience.
The parts are there. We simply learn to notice them.
Plan from Behind
This is where documentation becomes our friend.
Instead of beginning every week with a fear-based list of what must be forced into the day, we can observe what actually happens and give it credit. Write it down. Save the dated freewrite. Take a photo of the Lego measurement experiment. Jot a note about the conversation in the car where your child compared snow and hail.
A simple binder can become a record of a rich learning life. Divide it by subject. Add dated work samples, notes, drawings, narrations, lists, maps, and projects. Over time, you will see evidence accumulate.
Not because you manufactured school.
Because you honored learning.
Use Standards as Information
Sometimes a standards list will reveal a gap. Maybe you realize you have spent years delighting in nature study and have barely touched electricity. Wonderful. That is not failure. That is information.
Visit the library. Pull books from the children’s nonfiction shelves. Watch a documentary. Try an experiment. Follow curiosity until the topic has a little life in it.
The goal is not to force-feed a child a meal they did not ask for. The goal is to create appetite.
Investment Changes Everything
Children learn more readily when they have a reason to care. The reluctant writer may suddenly produce a persuasive essay when a video game system is on the line. The child uninterested in French may become curious through maps of Paris, French films, music, podcasts, or a beloved character who speaks the language.
Standards get hit when children are invested.
That is the heart of Brave Writer-style learning. We do not have to choose between academic growth and a meaningful homeschool life. We can understand the standards, translate the language, document the learning, and still protect the wonder.
Homeschooling does not have to become school-at-home.
We can begin with life, then notice all the learning already there.
Resources
- Catch the replays of our free Brave Writer training webinars
- Shop our June sale!
- Visit the Brave Learner website at thebravelearner.com
- Order your copy of The Brave Learner from the Brave Writer Book Shop
- Brave Writer class registration is open!
- Visit Julie’s Substack to find her special podcast for kids (and a lot more!)
- Purchase Julie’s new book, Help! My Kid Hates Writing
- Find community at the Brave Learner Home
- Learn more about the Brave Writer Literature & Mechanics programs
- Start a free trial of CTCmath.com to try the math program that’s sure to grab and keep your child’s attention
- Subscribe to Julie’s Substack newsletters, Brave Learning with Julie Bogart and Julie Off Topic, and Melissa’s Catalog of Enthusiasms
- Sign up for our Text Message Pod Ring to get podcast updates and more!
- Send us podcast topic ideas by texting us: +1 (833) 947-3684
- Interested in advertising with us? Reach out to media@bravewriter.com
Connect with Julie
- Instagram: @juliebogartwriter
- Threads: @juliebogartwriter
- Bluesky: @bravewriter.com
- Facebook: facebook.com/bravewriter
Connect with Melissa
- Website: melissawiley.com
- Substack: melissawiley.substack.com
- Instagram: @melissawileybooks
- Bluesky: @melissawiley.bsky.social
Produced by NOVA
Original Thought
I was on a podcast a while ago talking about being an author. I got asked what my favorite experience is when teaching writing.
It’s this: seeing kids discover that they have thoughts, stories and ideas that DESERVE to be in writing and then to be read. THIS is the gift we can give our children—school won’t give it. It’s up to you! You are your children’s biggest fan—get to know what lives in their minds, please!
Freedom to Explore
Every one of us has original thoughts that deserve sunlight! Our children think best when they are given the freedom to explore their thoughts in writing.
So many of us have been wounded by teachers who put more emphasis on the “right” thoughts or the “correct” grammar rather than helping each of us to think deeply, putting those precious thoughts into writing.
I talk a lot about critical thinking. Honestly: the first step in thinking well is to develop the habit of reading your own thoughts in writing! My book, Help! My Kid Hates Writing, is for every parent who wants to grow not only a writer, but a thoughtful thinker too.
The Pressure to Conform
Have you ever felt trapped by a group?
You are asking yourself fresh questions, but to voice them to family or friends might mean you are putting yourself at odds with them. The most dangerous thinking happens not because of misinformation but because of the pressure to conform to group think in order to maintain your relationships.
It’s tempting to adopt the beliefs and language of a group in order to feel like you belong. Once you choose to align with a group, however, you may risk your relationships should you ever think differently. But true belonging comes from knowing you can show up as you are now, not as the person you were or are supposed to be.
So, the quickest test of whether someone loves you as you are is to change your mind—to see something in a fundamentally different way than that person you love. How do they see you now?
The Purity Test
I have experienced this—the purity test, the “does she use the right language?” test, the “is it dangerous for me to hang out with her now?” question.
Remember: you don’t owe anyone fidelity to their slogans and ideas. Your strongest relationships are the ones that stay with the you who lives inside your current body, not the ones that are looking for evidence of agreement.
My book, Raising Critical Thinkers, can help too.
