There are a handful of books I have read over the last few years that have helped me refine my view of education more than any "how to" guide has. The best part of these books is you can read them along with your children, and help them to understand why you are making the choices you are.
Pocketful of Pinecones
"My students have a lifetime ahead of them in which to observe and discover - to become self-educated in their leisure, so to speak. My job is to allow their feet to walk the paths of wonder, to see that they form relations to various things, so that when the habit is formed, they will carry an appreciation for nature with them through out their lives."
"To get good grades in school is the motivation used in a system of education where children are constantly quizzed and tested. Here at home we are following a method of education - we are not participating in a system. It's been such a freeing way to teach. I've aimed at learning for the sake of knowledge and not for grades or prizes. Miss Mason recommends that children gain knowledge in three areas: knowledge of God (Bible), knowledge of man (history/humanities), and knowledge of the universe (science/math). Keeping these three areas in mind has helped me in my efforts to be a more orderly sort of person and to cover what is essential to know."
Little Men by Louisa May Alcott
"Every one scattered to his or her task, for each had some little daily duty, and was expected to perform it faithfully."
"His mother had cherished an innocent and loving heart in him; his father had watched over the physical growth of his boy, and kept the little body straight and strong on wholesome food and exercise and sleep, while Grandpa March cultivated the little mind with the tender wisdom of a modern Pythagoras,–not tasking it with long, hard lessons, parrot-learned, but helping it to unfold as naturally and beautifully as sun and dew help roses bloom...being early taught the secret of self-control, he was not left at the mercy of appetites and passions, as some poor little mortals are, and then punished for yielding to the temptations against which they have no armor. A quiet, quaint boy was Demi, serious, yet cheery, quite unconscious that he was unusually bright and beautiful, yet quick to see and love intelligence or beauty in other children. Very fond of books, and full of lively fancies, born of a strong imagination and a spiritual nature, these traits made his parents anxious to balance them with useful knowledge and healthful society, lest they should make him one of those pale precocious children who amaze and delight a family sometimes, and fade away like hot-house flowers, because the young soul blooms too soon, and has not a hearty body to root it firmly in the wholesome soil of this world. "
"Boys at other schools probably learned more from books, but less of that better wisdom which makes good men. Latin, Greek, and mathematics were all very well, but in Professor Bhaer’s opinion, self knowledge, self-help, and self-control were more important, and he tried to teach them carefully"
"A word from Father Bhaer could at any time produce a lull, and the lads had learned that liberty must not be abused. So, in spite of many dark predictions, the school flourished, and manners and morals were insinuated, without the pupils exactly knowing how it was done."
"At three o’clock the entire family turned out to walk, for all the active young bodies must have exercise; and in these walks the active young minds were taught to see and love the providence of God in the beautiful miracles which Nature was working before their eyes"
"Nat found life getting easier and happier every day, and made such progress in his music lessons that his teacher forgave his slowness in some other things, knowing very well that where the heart is the mind works best."
"Each boy knew that Father Bhaer was interested in him".
Laddie by Gene Stratton Porter
"'I wish you would tell me just how you have gone about schooling your children.'"
"'By educating ourselves before their coming, and with them afterward. Self-control, study, work, joy of life, satisfaction with what we have had, never-ending strife to go higher, and to do better... if these things do not help before birth, at least they do not hinder; and afterward, you are in the groove in which you want your children to run. With all our twelve there never has been one who at nine months did not stop crying if its father lifted his finger, or tapped his foot and told it to. From the start we have rigorously guarded our speech and actions before them. From the first tiny baby my husband has taught all of them to read, write and cipher some, before they went to school at all. He is always watching, observing, studying: the earth, the stars, growing things; he never comes to a meal but he has seen something that he has or will study out for all of us. There never has been one day in our home on which he did not read a new interesting article from book or paper; work out a big problem, or discuss some phase of politics, religion, or war. Sometimes there has been a little of all of it in one day, always reading, spelling, and memorizing exercises at night.'"
"'I was ignorant at first of bookish subjects, but in his atmosphere,
if one has no student, and didn't even try to keep up, or forge ahead,
they would absorb much through association. Almost always he has
been on the school board and selected the teachers; we have made a point
of keeping them here, at great inconvenience to ourselves, in order to
know as much of them possible, and to help and guide them in their work.
When the children could learn no more here... we have added at least
two years of college, music school, or whatever peculiar bent of the
child seemed to demand.'""'By educating ourselves before their coming, and with them afterward. Self-control, study, work, joy of life, satisfaction with what we have had, never-ending strife to go higher, and to do better... if these things do not help before birth, at least they do not hinder; and afterward, you are in the groove in which you want your children to run. With all our twelve there never has been one who at nine months did not stop crying if its father lifted his finger, or tapped his foot and told it to. From the start we have rigorously guarded our speech and actions before them. From the first tiny baby my husband has taught all of them to read, write and cipher some, before they went to school at all. He is always watching, observing, studying: the earth, the stars, growing things; he never comes to a meal but he has seen something that he has or will study out for all of us. There never has been one day in our home on which he did not read a new interesting article from book or paper; work out a big problem, or discuss some phase of politics, religion, or war. Sometimes there has been a little of all of it in one day, always reading, spelling, and memorizing exercises at night.'"
"...we never had one single teacher who knew anything to compare with what father and mother did, and we never had one who was forever reading books, papers, and learning more things that help, to teach other people." "...she said I might stay at home, father and Laddie would hear me at night, and I could take my books anywhere I pleased and study when I chose, if I had my spelling and reading learned at evening. Now, say the Lord doesn't help those who call on Him in faith believing!" "Think of being allowed to learn your lessons on the top of the granary, where you could look out of a window above the treetops, lie in the cool wind, and watch swallows and martins... I was so full, so swelled up and excited, that when I got ready to pick up a book, I could learn a lesson in a few minutes, tell all about it, spell every word, and read it back, front, and sideways. I never learned lessons so quick and so easy in all my life; father, Laddie, and every one of them had to say so. One night, father said to Laddie: 'This child is furnishing evidence that our school system is wrong, and our methods of teaching far from right.'" "'Or is it merely proof that she is different,' said Laddie, 'and you can't run her through the same groove you could the rest of us?'" "'A little of both,' said father, 'but most that the system is wrong. We are not going at children in a way to gain and hold their interest, and make them love their work. There must be a better way of teaching...'"
Lonesome Gods by Louis L'Amour
"All education is self-education. A teacher is only a guide, to point out the way, and no school, no matter how excellent, can give you an education. What you receive is the outlines in a child's coloring book. You must fill in the colors yourself."
"Great wealth had never been one of my ambitions. It was more important for me to become a good human being, and to learn, for there was so much to learn, from the Cahuillas, from the desert and mountains, from books, and from the people around me.”
"Listen to the men who come here. Listen well. Education is by no means confined to schools. Listen to such men talk, hear their philosophy, their ideas about the country, about business, trade, shipping, politics. Listen and learn. Some people only learn by reading, others by doing or seeing, some by hearing. Learn however you can, but learn!"
"Neither age nor size makes a man, Johannes. It is willingness to accept responsibility.”
“There was a time when a man spoke very impatiently to my father. He had seen a copy of the Iliad lying on the table. “You are reading this?” he asked.
“I have read it many times. Now I read it to my son.”
“But he is too young!” The man protested, almost angry.
"How young is too young to begin to discover the power and the beauty of words? Perhaps he will not understand, but there is a clash of shields and a call of trumpets in those lines. One cannot begin too young nor linger too long with learning….People, I think, read too much to themselves; they should read aloud from time to time to hear the language, to feel the sounds. “Homer told his stories accompanied by the lyre, and it was the best way, I think, to tell such stories. Men needed stories to lead them to create, to build, to conquer, even to survive, and without them the human race would have vanished long ago. Men strive for peace, but it is their enemies that give them strength, and I think if man no longer had enemies, he would have to invent them, for his strength only grows from struggle….My friend, I do not know what else I shall leave my son, but if I have left him a love of language, of literature, a taste for Homer, for the poets, the people who have told our story – and by ‘our’ I mean the story of mankind – then he will have legacy enough."
