A Brave Writer's Life in Brief

It’s tempting to focus on making sure our children are curious, to see if they have interests. Do you expect them to develop passions and then hope you can parlay those into the 3 Rs or 6 subject school day? Lots of discussion in teaching theory focuses on the notion that a child’s interest can lead the way. And to a certain extent, it’s true.

Children are naturally curious about all kinds of things. But they are also human beings. And humans go through dry spells and boredom. They run out of their own creative or curious energy from time to time.

During those in between times, parents sometimes assume that the child is no longer a curious person. They worry that the child has important subjects to master but shows no interest in them. So they resort to coercing an education.

In those moments, your curiosity can become the focal point of your child’s education. As the chief role model of adulthood and learning, what fascinates you and draws your curiosity is irresistible to children. By attending to your own capacity to learn, you live a learning journey in front of your kids.

They see a model of what it looks like to go from no interest, to curiosity, to interest, to applying yourself to learn something new. And because the topic or hobby or subject is of interest to an adult, it immediately becomes valuable. Children are drawn to adult tools, adult hobbies, and adult interests because that makes those subjects, hobbies, and experiences cool.

• If you want to quilt—get at it, in the middle if the day (not off stage, in your “free” time). If you want to learn the constellations, add the Stargazer app to your phone and start sky-watching tonight.
• Want to master algebra? Start your day with coffee and chapter one, working the problems, before read aloud time.
• Wish you had a better literature education? Bluetooth Audible and listen in the car or while making dinner. Watch the film versions.

The stuff you imagine makes a great education can be yours (and by extension, your kids’) if you lean into your own curiosity, now, while homeschooling.

This post is originally from Instagram and @juliebogartwriter is my account there so come follow along for more conversations like this one!

Ever have that feeling of disorientation when you discover that what you thought you “knew” turned out to be inaccurate or incomplete?

I was just in New Zealand for a series of conferences. They drive on the right side of the road. Every time I stepped off the curb, I forced myself to look in the correct direction to be sure no cars were coming, but my brain led me to involuntarily double check the other direction because I couldn’t accept that no one would be coming—decades of habit are hard to overturn in a two week period of time.

When we learn, we learn in such a way that our minds organize the material so that it makes sense to us. We categorize what we see and experience. We make rapid-fire observations and with equal speed, form snap-judgments.

This happens whether we are slurping hot chocolate (and expecting a certain taste—if the milk is sour, we know it right away; if the chocolate is overdone, we scrunch our faces to show the bitterness we weren’t anticipating) or meeting a well-loved celebrity (and grappling with all the ways that person does or doesn’t match our previous mental image).

In October in the Homeschool Alliance we’re looking at “growing a mind”—how to facilitate depth in learning through

• reading,
• experiencing, and
• encountering.

I’ll take us on a journey to look at the difference between scholastic study versus immersion to the extent that you are changed by what you’re learning.

We’ll learn about how we learn and grow by engaging in three different processes (these are processes I’ve designed that we use in many of our online classes). We’ll do one per week following the webinar on October 8.

We’ll do the activities first as adults and then talk about how to use them with your kids.  

It will be an amazing month of growth, fresh insight, and self-awareness. Join us!

Upcoming Webinar

• Brave Learner Book Club: Read, Experience, Encounter, Oct 8, 2019 7 PM ET

Hope to see you in the Homeschool Alliance!