Verified by 
As I mentioned in my last post, it has been hard this year with the kids in school to watch while their flame of delight in learning has gotten smothered in the repetitiousness and boredom that accompanies classroom life.
Charlotte Mason, who was a 19th century English educator and proponent of education at home, said that when we think of education in children, we should think not of a vessel to be filled but of a flame to be kindled. I have found that to be evidently true in our homeschooling family life.
In fact, one of the best ways I've found to kindle the flame of interest in my kids is to be interested in something myself. I have a lot of different interests and passions, and contrary to what one might think, I find that our life together becomes richer when I openly follow some of my own interests. Enthusiasm is catching, and if one is enthusiastic about worthy things, learning flows as a natural result.
When I was revising some poetry for submission a couple years ago, suddenly all the little people around me were composing poetry. When our family got serious about living on a written budget, I started to find little slips of paper about with mini-budgets on them. The last few years I've had a growing interest in fossils and geology (which I once thought the ultimate in boring), and while the tribe might like to roll their eyes a bit when the subject comes up once again, by golly, those kids can all tell you the names of the three kinds of rocks.
While the work of contagious enthusiasm is open for any parent, as I mentioned previously it was harder this year to be less directly involved.
Ironically, it was last weekend while doing some homeschool planning that I witnessed Apollo's flame catching fire again. I had him read the sample texts for two different science curriculums that I am considering for next year. The subject matter interested him, and afterward he ran outside and prepared an experiment involving the sun, some chocolate and a magnifying glass.
"Don't look at the sun through the magnifying glass," I yelled after him, feeling it my motherly duty to sound worried and pass out a dire warning.
"Of course I won't! I'm not stupid!" he yelled back. Secretly I was overjoyed to see him actively interested and experimenting, and I am anxious for them to be out of school so we can immediately begin the next school year (don't tell the kids.)
It's a pity, because for the most part, I believe teachers go into the profession because they are enthusiastic about learning and about the children they serve. But when the bureaucratic system becomes so large and top-heavy that teachers lose discretion and authority, then they are themselves no more than cogs in the machine. The children under their care are simply the smallest cogs.
In the meeting that I described in my last post, as I looked around the table, I was sure that all the teachers there were good teachers who knew their subject matter well. The problem was The System. In that meeting, nobody seemed to be qualified to make a simple decision about a French grade. Each person kept deferring to the next in very complimentary tones, and round and round the table we went, passing the buck of authority and responsibility. Even at the end of the meeting, the decision taken by committee was only a temporary one. Yet another pedagogical counselor higher up on the ladder of authority had to approve it.
I got the distinct feeling that some of the teachers felt as annoyed with the system as I did. But it was all they knew, and they had little choice or flexibility in the matter.
If there had been any notions of our continuing in the school next year, that meeting ended them. It is time to re-kindle the flame of real learning.
