an emerging perspective on education

Our word educate comes from the Greek word "to give," if memory is serving me correctly. In education we are introduced to vantage points from which to view the world. I hope for Henry's life windows to be broad enough to capture many, many different views.Play is the primary work of childhood. Responsibility is important, but identity (and initiative) emerge from play. I am so grateful for memories of my mother saying something to the effect of, "I will do this work right now. Your job is to play." My friend Jen's family of origin said it well on the walls of the home where they once lived: "The days that make us happy make us wise."

Whether or not he values these things now, I hope for Henry's life to be full of the real deal: real flowers, homemade food, things made and repaired by human hands belonging to people he loves.

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Learning happens all the time. I want to give our days together enough structure to hold us in, but enough freedom to allow all three (and then four) of us to do what we need and want to do.

I try the intentional "lesson" on occasion, but we seem to be rearing a boy who prefers learning through his own initiative. Perhaps he would thrive in a classroom setting where the learning goals are set out for him. Perhaps he would not. What I know is that I love, love, love it when he spells out words for me and asks me what they are. Yesterday's finds from an Arby's animal identification kit: s-w-i-f-t-f-o-x, m-o-u-n-t-a-i-n-g-o-a-t and skunk ("...but I already knew that one," he told me). I love learning things together, like the fact that most birds in the world are "passerine" (I think), but the hornbill (which we will be studying at the homeschool co-op this week) is non-passerine, meaning it doesn't sing a song and its young are (probably ...maybe?) precocial (don't need feeding from parents) as opposed to altricial, which means needing feeding...

I want to acquire some Waldorf main lesson books for drawing, but right now we are content doing daily journal entries in the little green diary with a lock on it that he requested when we went to buy school supplies.

I am beginning to feel a little more happily placed as a "home-schooling mom" even though that label still makes me bristle a bit if I stop to consider the assumptions about me it may cause others to form.

Glory be!