I’m reading A Thomas Jefferson Education by Oliver Van DeMille at the moment, inspired by Jamie at Steady Mom and Simple Homeschool. She’s often identified herself as being inspired by Thomas Jefferson Education (also called Leadership Education) and I was curious. I’m about halfway through the book, but so far I like it. The approach seems to be a blend of Classical Education and Mentoring. It feels very USA-centric, as you might guess from the title. But it is easy enough to substitute other Classic books or documents from your cultural background for the American ones mentioned.
One of the things Van DeMille suggests is to have kids write a mini-essay daily to hone their writing skills. His general formula seems to be: Read Lots of Classics + Discuss Classics + Write About Classics = Thorough Education.
When I look at my own learning process I can see how I do this, albeit on a rather reduced volume. My formula looks more like this: Read + Discuss + Experiment + Write + Reflect = one iteration of learning. Repeat iterations as often as required.
What kind of effect would I see if I wrote more often? I wonder how that would affect my learning process… would I pass through iterations more quickly, or process information in a more conscious way instead of letting things percolate below the surface?
I keep coming back to this idea, that the only real change we can make is in ourselves. That we cannot teach what we do not know. I need to look to myself first, challenge myself as a learner, stretch my own creativity or build up my own powers of self-discipline before placing any of those demands on my kids.
And that maybe it’s time I gave a daily writing practice a really serious try.
I'm Michelle Carchrae, the mama in the vortex. I'm glad you're here!
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As a family we started Creative Writing, all 4 of us have our own creative writing book, and we (try to) sit down together once a week and spend 15 minutes or so getting what is in our heads down on paper.
I read ‘Never to Early to Write’. It talks about how children get consumed by the proper way to spell and that hit home for Cayden who is 6. Every single thing he would write would have to be ‘perfect’ or it wouldn’t get written. He wouldn’t be able to use his creativity in a story because he was so concerned with that.
With this book you tell them they are going to sound out everything they need to write, draw pictures etc.
Luke the 3 year old mostly draw’s pictures, but he is so thrilled to be apart of the family creative writing time.
It’s been especially lovely to see my husband put down the ipad and pick up a pen and have the kids see him write and draw. They take so many cues from their dad, I think he made the whole experience easier and special by doing it with us.
I love this idea, Dawn! We do so very few things as a whole family even though we’re all at home many hours of the day as a self-employed, homeschooling family.
teacher-speak for this (in the u.s., anyway) is “invented spelling.” some parents balk because they are afraid kids won’t bother to learn to spell properly later on, but actually, it gets kids really excited about reading and writing because they are already able to communicate.
i’ve heard the same worries and same response about baby sign language. some parents say babies who know how to sign won’t bother to learn how to talk, but experts say that being able to communicate successfully through signing makes children even *more* motivated to learn how to talk. (and that was my own personal experience with my child. :)
i love the idea of a family writing time!
Lori´s last [type] ..Interview on the Family Lab for Inquiry and Play
Yes, I’ve heard of encouraging invented spelling, and we do that at home too. Bea tends to swing back and forth between writing freely on her own with invented spelling and creating something for a purpose (like a birthday card) that she wants to know the proper spellings for. That’s ok with me. :)
michelle, i love so much how you turned this into something that you could do *yourself*. i agree with you completely re: we have to start with ourselves, and i think our children learn much more from what we do than what we tell *them* to do.
this also reminds me of the (apocryphal?) story of gandhi and the mother who brought her young son to see him. she told gandhi her son ate too much sugar and begged for him to tell her son to stop. he told her to come back in two weeks. she returned in two weeks and he told her son that it wasn’t healthy to eat so much sugar. she asked him, “why did you tell me to go away for two weeks before you would talk to him?” and gandhi replied, “first, i had to stop eating sugar.” ;o)
Lori´s last [type] ..Interview on the Family Lab for Inquiry and Play