Educating Leaders - No Conveyor Belt Education Here!

June 9, 2006 - Real Education

What is "real education"?

Most parents today think it is completing high school or college. You grew up riding down the conveyor belt of education, completing textbooks, and following the same path as every other student. This does not provide an education for future leaders. Instead it trains students to be followers who only learn "what to think".

One of the differences between public education (on the conveyor belt) and leadership education (teaching how to think) is the concept of "inspire, not require". These past few weeks have truly been educational and inspirational. What do I mean by this?

My children spent some time at their grandparents' home in Texas before Steve & I arrived. My son excitedly called to tell me what they were doing (really he was learning). He discovered two bird nests with eggs, saw a triple barrel shotgun, visited a museum with many, many animals and much more. Hunter and his grandma spent hours looking for the type of birds that laid their eggs nearby.

We picked up our children from camp and drove to my parents a couple of weeks ago. The first thing my son asked his grandma when we arrived back at the farm was if the eggs had hatched. We spent the week watching the eggs hatch and the birds fly on their own. Then, we discovered the birds were painted buntings. We also found a nest in my dad's hat, right outside the back door. There are 5 eggs in that wren's nest.

Next we discovered two brown-speckled eggs on the ground at the back of the farm. After investigating the eggs and the bird, they spent time on the internet and reading the bird books to find out it is a whip-poor-will. Whip-poor-wills lay two brown eggs on the ground.

Last night we watched a fawn nurse from its mom, then lie down in the grass while its mom walked into the woods. The fawn looked like it was one or two days old.

I could go on, but you get the picture. We were all learning about birds and wildlife without cracking a textbook or answering questions.

Do you think my children will remember more about these animals or the ones they might be forced to study in a textbooks?

This summer I will continue to look for areas of interest in my children and pursue that for studies. You can inspire your children to "real education" by following their interests and the situations God places in your life.

Kerry

category:

Inspire Your Kids
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June 9, 2006 - Thank you...

Posted by Devonbunny

for posting that, I enjoyed reading it.

Love and blessings
Jules x (UK)

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June 10, 2006 - Great post

Posted by OurHomeSweetHomeschool

Thank you so much for sharing this. I have been feeling the Holy Spirit guiding us in a new direction in our homeschooling and this was very confirming.

Enjoy your summer (although I turned the heat on here in MN today *gasp*).

Blessings,
Theresa

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June 10, 2006 - THANK YOU, THANK YOU, THANK YOU!!!!!

Posted by MrsIncredible

Kerry, I just stopped by to tell you THANK YOU. I came to your blog a few weeks ago via random blogging, and your posts about Leadership Education really resonated with my as-of-yet uncollected thoughts. Well, upon your recommendation, I bought "A Thomas Jefferson Education" at our used curriculum sale today. My husband and I could not stop reading it, and we are already done-- I read it out loud all day whenever we had a minute, and we talked about it a ton. This is what education should be, what we have been hoping for all along but had not yet put a name to or fleshed out a plan in detail. We have three young children, and we are SO excited to have found this wonderful resource so early in our homeschooling experience, and SO sad that we didn't get this kind of an education ourselves! We will be remedying that starting today, by the way :)

Thank you, thank you, thank you, for turning me on to this! I count you as a HSB friend, and hope we can dialogue about Leadership Education for years to come!

It certainly seems you have had a wonderful last couple of weeks with your children, and I agree.. what they are getting through following their own interests plus your mentoring is more than they could ever get from a textbook forced on them.

Sincerely,
Jen

P.S. I alos own my own business and share your heart for developing entrepreneurial spirit, your family's resources look great!

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A place to interact about teaching our kids without following the conveyor belt model of the government schools. Think outside the box and provide a leadership education for your children. Other musings are included on a regular basis :-)

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