Even the prodigy who reads and plays piano at age three needs a full and wonderful Core Phase. Part of Core is discovery and play, so your brilliant son can discover and play at caluculus or physics or literary analysis at age five if he wants, but do not put him in Scholar until the Core Lessons are fully and clearly learned. Right and wrong, good and bad, true and false are lessons that exceptionally intelligent and gifted people often struggle with, so if your child is a prodigy he likely needs a longer, fuller Core Phase than anyone else. In play time he can study whatever he wants. - Leadership Education, pages 213-214I am not sure any of my children are prodigies per se, they are all very talented human beings with abilities that stretch far beyond anything I have ever taught them. I have found that once a child has shown a certain level of genius about a topic I seem to want to expect that same level of genius every time they engage in that topic. I believe that is the folly here, expecting brilliance every time a child shows interest or genius in a subject, talent, or project. Much of the Core and Love of Learning phase is spent exploring...trying things out...and yes, occasionally knocking our socks off with what they can do.
The concern is expectation. It seems to me that our expectations are what push us to want to start children too early in a phase rather than allowing them to want to be in that phase all the time. It is easy to tell when we are pushing...a time of "Hate of Learning" seems to come creeping in. I heard things like, "you take all the fun out of everything" or "I don't want to read __________" or "I hate math". It was time to back off and evaluate what I was doing and why. Sometimes swallowing my pride and expectations is what I needed to do. Sometimes I just needed to switch things up with more hands-on activities or fieldtrips.
Has this ever happened to you?
I LOVE LOVE LOVE that you are blogging about these mistakes that can be made! I consider myself and my family very blessed that we get to start with all Core phasers. This past year, I have felt myself really relax about all the "fill in the blanks" that I was worried my children should be doing. I finally feel like I can relax about whether I am "doing it right". We do family work, we play, we are establishing a schedule that involves free time, and we are really happy about it! Thanks for inspiring me!
ReplyDeleteLove the illustration. I think I did this with R. I should have waited the extra years even though she could do math she wasn't ready to do the sit down learning at a desk with stress yet. I also think that you can expect to little of children and then they are lax in a desire to be challenged. Hope you guys are having a great time in your new state.
ReplyDeleteI really liked the cartoon too...hee hee! I think this was me with Chris. I was expecting something to happen just like the man in the cart, while the horse is rolling his eyes and thinking, "What is up with this?"
ReplyDeleteI'm glad that my posts are helpful. I know these epiphanies have come after much struggle, sweat, and tears!
I agree that too little can be expected as well...which comes up in future posts. ;-) It is a matter of WHAT is expected and WHEN to expect it...the key is found when a child SUBMITS to us as a mentor. Sound familiar? Kind of like submitting our will to Heavenly Father. We rebel and don't want to follow, but once we submit, our struggles lessen and the burden becomes lighter.
The same is true in Leadership Education, we are trying to inspire the child to learn and grow, eventually submitting to the mentor (in Scholar Phase) in a way that allows them to reach their fullest potential.