A great many times in the last 5 years of homeschooling, I have tried to do some fun science observation/experiment involving growing a house or other type of plant.
For me, the point was to grow it, make our observations, draw a nice series of pictures, and check it off the list. And our poor plants died every time!
After spending some time at my sisters house and noticing and enjoying her BEAUTIFUL house plants, I had a revelation! We failed because I was just doing it for the sake of the experiment! I did not CARE about growing a plant and so I didn’t do the work of nurturing it. Obviously, right?!?
But that’s how education is too. Charlotte Mason wrote, “The question is not, — how much does the youth know? when he has finished his education — but how much does he care? and about how many orders of things does he care? In fact, how large is the room in which he finds his feet set? and, therefore, how full is the life he has before him?”
The goal of education for our family isn’t just knowing and doing, my goal is to teach my children to care about the things they know and do.
