It’s time to get back to the basics when training up children was done simply by talking with them. Conversations about life were shared at grandma’s feet, as children listened to her tell stories with great moral lessons to live by. Then they would bombard her with so many questions, and she’d answer them with other humorous stories. These “teachable moments” could go on and on unless another family member stepped in to tell everyone to go to bed.
During holidays, after the family had eaten a scrumptious dinner together, Grandpa would gather the children around him and frighteningly dramatize evil characters so much so that they would never forget the consequences for doing wrong. Then in another scene, he would send the savior, the hero of his mystical story, to deliver the innocent from the destruction of the evil ones giving the innocent victory over bad friendships and immoral behaviors, and also answer questions about all kinds of topics that buffet the individual and social lives of our children and teens.
That was then. We call it “old school” because life was taught at home by our grandparents and parents before we tottered off the “new school” building with hundreds of peers to sit under formalized direct instruction -with teacher at board and learners in hard wooden seats learning a-b-c and 1-2-3.
Yes, there are a plethora of educational systems represented by the plethora of nations on the globe. As a trained teacher, for over 25 years, I have taught hundreds of children in various educational systems and whole-heartedly support the home-school learning environment.
During this COVID-19 period of human history, it’s time to re-create what worked in the days of old integrating it with what presently works in our formalized education systems. This “new system” of training our children can work effectively by getting back to the basic “old school” training system in the home. In the next few blogs, we shall build our home-school one building block at a time.
So here are a few materials you’ll need to get started: an area in your home for the use of instruction only (preferably far away from kitchen), a board (white or black) with markers or chalk, a table and chairs to put around that table (based on the number of children in your home), some exercise books, sketch pads (or drawing sheets), pencils, pens, crayons, erasers, sharpeners and lots of love.
Meet me at the forum to discuss more about the building materials needed to construct our “new home-school”.
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