Monday, February 19, 2007

What are your goals for your children's education?

Is it to have them get a diploma or degree so they can get a good job?
Is it to keep them out of your hair for the bulk of the day?
Is it so they can maximize their potential?
What is the point of the education or schooling of your children?

It doesn't really matter if you are homeschooling or private schooling or public schooling your children. How you answer or not answer these questions will effect how your children will develop over the course of their education.

My daughter is not old enough to make major decisions about her education, and we do try to let her make minor decisions about what she will do for her lesson of the day. But even teenagers while old enough just don't have the experience not to require some guidance. I had a guidance counselor in high school who I saw once but that hadn't been all that useful.

The most important thing I can think of for our daughter to learn is what here talents are. To find those things she has a natural ability for and to hone them so she can be the best she can be with them.

As important as that is it is also important that she learn other basic skills:
• Cooking, so she can feed herself.
• Cleaning, to keep her home clean.
• Art, to fill her life with beauty.
• How to balance her checkbook and handle credit cards and money in general.
• First aid, for obvious reasons.
• How to drive and maintain a car.
• Computers and technology because that is a major part of our lives now.
• How to communicate, to write, and speak in public.
• Learn to play a musical instrument.
• To participate on a team.
• To act alone.

These are only a start and they need to be refined as she develops, as we learn more about her too.

But for now we are focusing on fundamentals: reading, writing and arithmetic. And at this point it is letter and number identification.

She made a pretty big step yesterday in church, she identified all the letters in the Exit sign. We made a big deal out of that.

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