“Mommy is it time for school yet.” My friend Jen, the mother of a family I have been working with, was amazed to be awakened in the wee hours of the morning to this question. As mom’s who are spending 24-7 with our children, we are not used to hearing words as positive and affirming as this. But these are exactly the kinds of statements that parents who learn to use the “5 Rules of engagement” and “The Spark Station” hear from their children. “Can we have school again, now?” “Mom, I can’t wait until tomorrow to do home school and sit in our library and read together!”
When you learn how to organize a Spark Station space, a place where you can inspire your children, you can absolutely have this kind of response.
The Spark Station by it very nature creates this kind of excitement for children. Remember that The Spark Station is a tool that is designed to be used during the core and love of learning phases. That is between the ages of 0 to about 12. I call those years the “time of wonder”. Everything is new, fresh, interesting, unknown. Children naturally want to learn about the world they live in and the people that populate it, their family. If we can tap into this natural inclination and avoid derailing it, wonderful learning can take place that will impact them all their lives.
To do this in the truest sense sometimes takes us out of our social comfort zone. We find that we don’t fit into the parenting crowd. Other parents judge our sanity and wonder if we are ruining our kids. This happens not only in home school families but in those families who use public and private education but structure their family time based on Leadership Education (TJEd) principles. When you decide to use this model then you have to believe in the model and in your children’s ability to learn(TJEd blog).
You have to have a firm intent to raise leaders. You have to decide! I have worked with a few families that are intrigued by the leadership model but they really haven’t made it their intent. They are homeschooling or patterning their family activities on the Leadership Model but they aren’t firmly committed to it. They don’t trust the process. Therefore they are constantly second guessing themselves and listening to the advice of those who don’t understand this particular education model. This ambivalence is a painful place to try to home school from or to try and build a leadership home from.
The Spark Station can’t cure this disease of non-belief and lack of trust in the process – that your children can and will learn on their own; that they are designed to educate themselves with the proper environment and mentors. Until parents are fully committed to a Leadership Model of Education they will struggle with every wind of doubt that comes their way.
I want families to learn how to use The Spark Station and other tools to help their children educate themselves. But first parents have to be helped to trust and believe in the the Leadership model if that is what they are choosing to use. There are some wonderful books that can help. If you, as a parent, haven’t read them I highly recommend that you do whether you home school or not. The concepts found in their pages can help you have a drastic shift in how you see education and your role in it for yourself and your family. They can and will help you cement your intent to have a home where leaders and statesmen are raised.
Leadership Education: The Phases of Learning by Rachel and Oliver DeMille;
A Thomas Jefferson Education by Oliver DeMille;
A Thomas Jefferson Education Home Companion by Oliver DeMille, Rachel DeMille and Diann Jeppson
Possibly Related Posts:
- How we made Learning Inspiring!
- Monday – How to Mentor Difficult Books with youth
- Have an Amazing Experience in the Love of Learning Center
- Skills to build character while you read
- An Amazing Opportunity – Work with the Home School Coach at the TJED Family forum in Salt Lake city
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