Home education is my way of “lighting the fire” in my children.  Many people (especially the so-called “experts”) look at education as “filling a cup”; that is, children are empty of knowledge and they (the teachers) must be  the ones to fill that cup.

I have a Bachelor of Science degree in Education and English and I know what teachers are taught. Not much.  An education degree from even the best university focuses on teaching behavioral science and other educational psychobabble.  It’s a joke. The average college student has very little knowledge in any subject and thus doesn’t have anything with which to fill those empty vessels. Ask a college student if he’s read any good books lately and you will probably get a blank stare.

Any mother who has been busy with babies and laundry and meals and…well… life can testify to the fact that children learn. They learn through that wonderful God-given curiosity and zest for living with which every child slides into the world.It’s a wonderful thing!

If a mother (or father or grandparent or any other person who is vitally interested in the child) will turn off the computer or t.v. and look that child in the eye and talk about the world…guess what happens? Education happens! And, if that same caring adult opens up the pages of books and reads many of them to the child guess what happens? The child’s imagination is stimulated. .. It’s a wonderful thing.

And it doesn’t take a non-reading expert who managed to finish his college classwork to stimulate learning, to engage the imagination, to light the fire.

Nine tenths of education is encouragement.

Anatole France; Nobel prize in Literature

Encourage your children… Light the Fire!