In my last post, I talked about how I as a homeschooling parent will teach my kids to contribute to society. This was based on a question posed by a friend of mine, a question that for some reason really got me thinking about education and parenting in general.
I have been doing some deep thinking about what I hope to accomplish as a parent and what I hope to teach my kids as a home educating mom. Actually, this started with some lighter thinking. About the name of our homeschool. Let me explain.
In the state of Kansas, homeschools are considered non-accredited private schools. If you choose to homeschool your kids, you must register yourself with the state of Kansas by the time your student is 7, or, whenever you withdraw them from public or private school. Lexi will turn 7 in November so I need to register our school by then, which means I need to pick out a name for it. I love naming things so I have been giving this a lot of thought.
My first idea for our school's name was Upward Academy or Upward Sights Academy. I considered these because I feel that the name has two meanings. First, that we should set our sights upward, that is, on God. Second, that we should always strive to improve ourselves or move upward toward the next level. I liked these names, but I couldn't really figure out how to word it to best convey the concept I was going for. I wanted our name to reflect the purpose of our school.
So I took a break from the name game and decided to focus on defining the goals and purpose of our school. What do I hope to teach my kids? What is the most important thing they could learn? There are a million things I'd love for my kids to study, tons of books I'd love to read them, skills I want them to learn.
After a lot of thinking, I've narrowed down my aim as a parent and home educator into three simple skills/abilities that I hope my kids will be able to do when they "graduate":
The ability to think...
To use their brains to analyze situations and life circumstances
To understand how they learn
To thirst for understanding
To gain knowledge and apply
Basically, to use their heads.
The ability to care...
To love others, like Jesus did and commanded us to do
To care about people
To care about our world
To be sensitive to the needs and circumstances of others
In other words, to use their hearts.
To care without thinking can be ineffective. Thinking allows you to create plans to make an impact. If you think without caring, you may make a callous or selfish choice. Care and compassion are needed.
At first, I thought I was done at these two. I want my kids to think and to care. Sounds good. Then I realized I was missing a crucial piece...
The ability to act...
I realized, without this one, the other two don't matter at all.
This is probably the hardest skill to learn- to see what needs to be done and to do it.
To not let fear get in the way of moving forward.
To keep trying when plans fail.
To use their hands, their bodies, to accomplish what their hearts and minds know needs accomplishing.
All three are necessary. The head, heart and hands work together.
If my kids learn to think, to care and to act, I will know my job is done.
So for the name of our school, I'm going to try to incorporate these goals. Maybe we will be TCA Academy, T for think, C for care, A for act. Or maybe not. I'm still working the bugs out. But now that I know what my focus is and have put it into words, I am going to work on putting it into practice each day.
Note: Someone told me that this sounds a lot like the 4-H motto. I did not realize that when I was coming up with it. Maybe we'll join 4-H someday, since our priorities seem to align ;)
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