I think, perhaps, one of the saddest things is to see a young person who has no drive, no desire to learn and just slumps around. It's like there has been a death in their soul. How could they possibly have no desire to learn when as a society, we have it all together? From children's earliest moments in life they are educated. In fact we spent millions and more on education in this country each year. And yet, we have high suicide rates for children and young people. We also graduate out of our schools each year kids that can't even read.  

    It amazes me that we just don't get it! For years we've had it all planned out. We have all the scopes and sequences lined up for each age and grade. We've told our kids what to think, how to think, when to think and what to think about what we've told them to think. We've kept them busy from pre-preschool to college. We've capsulized education at each level into pill sized vitamins - and sat back and thought our kids were nourished. But alas, the sad fact remains, kids hate school and the word learning is equated with some piece of information that someone else has chewed up and served down a child's throat. It doesn't matter if they choke on the material as it's going down. All that matters is that - at the precise time laid out by some educated professional, our children learn said piece of educational material.  

    Okay, why do I say this to a group of homeschooling families? I just wonder, do we do the same thing in our own homes. We've taken our children out of the "school system" but have we just brought that system home with us? Sometimes, I fear, that we've gotten so used to seeing bored kids, kids with no ambition, no love of learning etc. that we've settled for maybe a half step above the system's educational process.  

    But, just what would happen if our children actually had time to learn. What am I talking about? Just what if our children had time?  You would think with homeschooling that we'd be home all day and have time. But what I am seeing and hearing and have experienced personally in the past is that we don't have time to learn. We have boxes of curriculum we try and feed our children, we have youth groups, field trips, church programs, homeschool get togethers, outside home lessons and more that we do. But we don't have time! If we had time, we'd think we need to fill it with more "things". Howbeit educational things, of course! But "things" nonetheless that somehow give us a peace of mind that we "doing" something in the name of education for our children. As if they were mere robots that need to be programmed.  

    Well, what is wrong with that? On the surface nothing. And there is nothing wrong with having a few outside involvements. But we are literally afraid that we are going to ruin our children if we don't "educate" them.  So we go on a search, constantly seeking educational opportunities.  Our motives are great. And some of it goes a long way. But I wonder, are we teaching our children that education is something that is done to them?  What if education was something our children sought after instead? 

    I think the fear we have as parents is that our children wouldn't naturally seek to learn. And given the sad fact, our society of children do seem so unhappy and bored, it would make one believe that they need to rush and quickly "do" something to/for their children.  

    What if we just loved them? What if we just treated them like thinking human beings? What if we gave them time - I mean lots of  time?  What if we gave them lots of our time and lots of time to explore?  What if I had time to read to them a couple of times a day and what if during that time we read more than just one  chapter? What if we could disentangle our busy souls just alittle and have time to really give our children "us" - not a textbook, not a lesson, not a guilt trip - just give them us?  

    About eight years ago I spent the summer reading and rereading Dr. & Mrs. Moore's book The Successful Homeschool Family (back then it was called Homeschool Burnout). I kept reading about all these families that did less "school" and more real learning from real life. It really encouraged me alot but I still kept thinking that I had to "do" something. Learning wouldn't take place unless I "did" something. The next summer Dr. Raymond Moore came to our area and stayed in the home in of a close friend. He spoke at our church and we spent the day with him at my friends home.  Watching him that day, I finally starting "getting" it. The kids loved Dr. Moore. You always found him literally surrounded with children. But the whole day (from his sermon to having supper and finally vespers) he did
nothing to the children. He just became available to them.  He had time.  Here was this man that has traveled all over the world, written tons of books and articles and is known in homeschool circles everywhere, but it was like he was the neighbor next door and had time to just sit there and talk and tell stories and he actually sought the children out. He didn't orchestrate or organize projects for the kids - he was just available.  The kids felt it and knew it.

    That experience has stayed with me. I thought that that would be how Jesus taught. He didn't tell people what to think or when to think it.  Yet He was the world's greatest Teacher. He had time and gave people time to grow and become like Him. He allowed people to bud and blossom in their own timing. The King of the universe had time, shouldn't we have time?  

    Over the years, God has been faithful to show me and teach me to relax more and allow my children to blossom in their own timing. I have actually found that by giving my children more time to explore and shorter time periods doing "seatwork", that they have started blossoming into some of the neatest people to spend time with.  

    Recently, a older couple, my parents are friends with, spent time in our home asking for help with some web development. The gentlemen  takes beautiful nature photos that have been featured in major nature magazines like Bird's and Blooms. Our children crowded into our office with us as he showed us his beautiful photographs and we worked on some web ideas.   Later my parents shared with me that this couple was so impressed with how our children were so interested in the nature photos and how he was able to capture the pictures. He told my parents that they don't see children that interested in most anything these days.  

    I didn't really think about my children being in the office that day.  For years they've loved nature and collected different nature objects.  They've loved birds and flowers and just about anything. For years, we've just given the children a lot of time to play in the pond, the swampy areas, the creek and the river at the end of the road. We've spent almost every evening walking in the woods or down the country road and a lot of weekends hiking trails or mountain climbing. We've collected shelves of nature books and field guides and even made our own. We've spent time watching nature videos and visiting museums. I never thought of this as "school" actually until recently. But when I consider the amount of time we've spent on those things through the years and how much our children understand about it all - it's a tremendous education. It just  happened in bits of time over many years.  

    I always find it interesting when people comment on all the things our children like to do. It is just something that happens rather spontaneously around here. The boys love to build stuff, learn outdoor life and hiking, they like to garden and fix things. So many times through the years, I have felt so guilty, the lessons would be completed in an hour or so - many times less than that. We'd spend an hour in the morning and the evening reading and many times found some quiet time to read through
the day. It wasn't forced - we just loved those times. As we traveled around we'd listen to tapes or just talked. But for the most part we're homebodies and we've just spent a lot of time working together. So many times I would think, I should do "more things" that were educational.  But I have found our life itself to be the best education for our children.  Oh, they learn math and English for sure. But the huge bulk of their time is spent doing things of interest to them and reading things of  interest to them.  

    Now, as my oldest is entering highschool age, I see even more clearly the wisdom of giving time to your children. Allowing them to think and experience life first hand and not just from a book or a lesson plan.  I've watched as my children had an appetite to learn how to design webpages and actually teach themselves things that I don't know or understand. All on their own they search the internet for information, they scour the library for books and none of this is something I have developed plans for.  But because they are doing it, I call it education and track it as such.  Many times I have seen the boys seek information on something like how an engine works. They do a little reading and hands on research and then put it aside. What I have learned is that all the many things they delve into are putting a foundation under their feet. They are making acquaintances with many areas of knowledge and spending as much or as little time as is necessary for them to achieve the amount of information they need at the time. Later they have already a nodding acquaintance with the subject area and can move on. They are also learning how to find information and process it.  

    But all this has taken time and lots of it for years. Time well spent!  I've provided, through the years, science kits and materials to make and do projects with. But I am humbled as I sit back and watch them learn.  They will learn - I don't have to contrive everything. It's not only possible for them to learn, but if they don't learn how to learn - I've robbed them! Chilling thought!  

    Give your child time! It's okay to spend the whole afternoon in the garden. Let the garden be your lesson book. It's okay to spend the day in the woods - let collecting leaves, mushrooms, flowers, and tree rubbings be your lesson for the day/week/month. It's okay to spend the day boiling maple sap into syrup - amazing opportunity to teach fire safety and food preservation and read about the Native Americans and legends behind the first use of Maple Syrup. It's okay to bake for a couple of hours - have your child copy the recipe you made together in his/her copy notebook.  We have just a few short years, really (!) to give ourselves to our children.  To allow them to grow and bud and that takes time! But this becomes their whole foundation for "real" life!  

    If at the end of twelve years of school our children have been pumped with endless reams of curriculum but have no desire to learn anything else or they lack enthusiasm for life - what have we really gained?  I am amazed at how quickly the academics can be mastered. But our children need time to learn how to learn and how to think for themselves. They need time to become what God has created them to be. What a loss if after educating our children they only become a hollow shell of we did in the name of education! But it doesn't have to be this way - God will not fail us  as welearn to seek True Education through His eyes.  It's about time, we made time . . . to give our children - our TIME!

By: Joan LaCelle
http://www.lacellefamily.com
email: lacelle@earthlink.net
Copyright April 2000 by LaCelle Family Ministries Used with Permission.