Homeschool Encouragement & the Relaxed Approach

I love quotes. Words that inspire, reaffirm, teach and challenge. As I homeschool I find it important to remind myself of my goals and the true meaning of education. As a relaxed homeschooler I especially need to renew my mind about how children best learn.

I hope these quotes encourage you as they do me. Consider them carefully. Notice the authors; some may surprise you.

And regardless of your homeschooling method, you really can RELAX! And remember, God gave us these children; and He gave us the job of discipling them; which means “faithful is He who called you, who also will DO IT!”

My homeschool tip of the day…”If you only have time for ONE thing, gather your children once during the day, and read straight out of the Bible to them.”

” I am beginning to suspect all elaborate and special systems of education. They seem to me to be built upon the supposition that every child is a kind of idiot who must taught to think. Whereas if the child is left to himself, he will think more and better, if less slowly. Let him come and go freely, let him touch real things and combine his impressions for himself, instead of sitting indoors at a little round table while a sweet-voiced teacher suggest that he build a stone wall with his wooden blocks, or make a rainbow out of strips of colored paper, or plant straw trees in flower pots. Such teaching fills the mind with artificial associations that must be got rid of before the child can develop independent ideas out of actual experiences. “-
– Anne Sullivan

” Teaching does not make learning — organized education operates on the assumption that children learn only when and only what and only because we teach them. This is not true. It is very close to 100% false. Learners make learning. “– Education Reformer John Holt

” It is, in fact, nothing short of a miracle that the modern methods of instruction have not yet entirely strangled the holy curiosity of inquiry; for this delicate little plant, aside from stimulation, stands mainly in need of freedom. “– Albert Einstein

” When you want to teach children to think, you begin by treating them seriously when they are little, giving them responsibilities, talking to them candidly, providing privacy and solitude for them, and making them readers and thinkers of significant thoughts from the beginning. That’s if you want to teach them to think.”–Bertrand Russell

” I sometimes ask myself how it came about that I was the one to develop the theory of relativity. The reason, I think, is that a normal adult never stops to think about problems of space and time. These are things which he has thought about as a child. But my intellectual development was retarded, as a result of which I began to wonder about space and time only when I had already grown up. “– Albert Einstein

” What is most important and valuable about the home as a base for children’s growth into the world is not that it is a better school than the schools, but that it isn’t a school at all.”
–John Holt

” The idea is to educate, not follow anyone’s schedule about when something should be studied. “–Ray Drouillard

” The only purpose of education is to teach a student how to live his life-by developing his mind and equipping him to deal with reality. The training he needs is theoretical, i.e., conceptual. He has to be taught to think, to understand, to integrate, to prove. He has to be taught the essentials of the knowledge discovered in the past-and he has to be equipped to acquire further knowledge by his own effort. “–Ayn Rand

Think Outside the Classroom

Think Outside the Classroom—a great place to start if you’re considering homeschooling or if you’d like a more relaxed approach.