I Took His Hand and Followed

by Mrs. Roy L. Peifer

My dishes went unwashed today, 

I didn't make the bed, 

I took his hand and followed 

Where his eager footsteps led. 

Oh yes, we went adventuring, 

My little son and I... 

Exploring all the great outdoors 

Beneath the summer sky

Outdoor Learning

Reading through "Home Education," by Charlotte Mason impressed me with the importance for children to spend quality time outdoors. "Never be within doors when you can rightly be without." She encourages mothers to secure their children with quiet growing time and plenty of fresh air. Actually, she encourages moms to dedicate much of the afternoon to outdoor time. Children may run and romp around, making noise and having fun. When they come back to Mom, she may send them on a "sight seeing" expedition to see who can see the most and tell the most about such and such. This exercise (which is play to the children) helps train their observation skills, perceptive power, vocabulary and ideas. She encourages lavish descriptions and children learn the art of discriminating observation. Children build up a series of familiar images in their mind, and learn to really see and enjoy their environment. In later schooling years, he'll learn facts about familiar things, rather than facts about things he's never seen or noticed before. His familiar images will also help him imagine those things that he hasn't seen, by comparing them to the familiar.

Natural Learning

You may recall the story of the blind-deaf girl, Helen Keller... She was trapped in her own mind, with no real means of communicating with the world around her until she was nearly seven years old. She says she "felt as if invisible hands were holding (her), and (she) made frantic efforts to free (herself),"1:14 and that the day her teacher came to her was the most important day of her life... that language "awakened (her) soul, gave it light, hope, joy, set it free!"1:17,20 Helen's teacher, Anne Sullivan, helped her break down the barrier, bit by bit, until her mind was free to communicate and express itself fully. If you've read any of Helen's writing, you'll see that as an adult she had a very fluent, impressive command of the English language, and that she seems to be very well educated. 

What does this have to do with home schooling? Well, in a sense, everything. How did Helen transform from being unruly and unreachable, into a sweet, giving, good-natured, insightful, educated young woman? That's what I'd like to take a closer look at. I enjoyed reading Helen's story, as told by herself, but even more so as told by her teacher, who gives many details (that Helen likely forgot or didn't particularly make note of) concerning the day-to-day activities and methods used to reach and teach Helen. Many of Anne's discoveries parallel what home schoolers today are independently finding to be educational jewels for their own children. 

Real Work & Responsibility

Excerpt taken from an Interview with John Taylor Gatto, by Mary Pride, Feb 27, 2010.

"Nothing works as fast to give kids a leadership mindset, self-control, discipline, and a lot of good things, as work! Real work. Taking their share of the load, and that includes starting little businesses. My granddad gave me the formula when I was a kid, and I used it to good effect all my life. He said, if you find out something people need, and you give it to them cheaper or better, or you're just the only one offering it that's convenient, you've got a business! People don't care whether you're ten years old if you have what they want, or a hundred years old!

I had a boy who made $26,000 a year. That was 32 years ago. You can inflation-adjust that and say he may have even been making what some lawyers make today. He was walking dogs, also bird-sitting and fish-feeding. He had 58 customers, but he didn't do the work himself. He trained other kids to do it. He booked the business, and I think he took a 50 cent override per pet, so the kids were getting about $6 an hour, which they were delighted with, and he was banking his boxcar figures.