No Greater Joy Ministries » Homeschooling

What Is Creativity and Is It Important?

Debi Pearl — Fri, 15 Feb 2013 14:05:50 +0000

Creativity begins with imagination, conceiving a thing that is not but should be, and then taking steps to make it a reality. It is facing a problem and envisioning an original way to solve it satisfactorily. Creativity can be born of practical necessity or artistic expression, but it is something original—not done before, or not done in the same way. Without creativity there would be no innovation, no progress, nothing new or different. Think of the tools and trades that never would have existed without creative thought. Man would remain in the Stone Age—no houses, cars, computers, planes, or even light. Disease would have no cure. There would be no music or storytelling. God is creative. We are the proof of that. Being in his image, it is our nature to create—to endlessly strive to come up with something that amazes and gratifies. Creativity is associated with happiness and success in life. Creative people are interesting people; the lack thereof makes one a wallflower. Just a few years ago, operational efficiency was the yardstick of market success; today it is all about anticipating consumer demands. This translates into the insight to conceive of a heretofore-unknown product that meets a need, or at least a new way to market an old product.

Is Creativity an Inborn Gift?

Why are some people creative and others not so much? I have often heard people say, “Oh, I just wasn’t born with the gift for creativity. I am better with numbers and facts.” This statement simply is not true. Researchers have found environment to be more important than heredity in influencing creativity, and a child’s creativity can be either strongly encouraged or discouraged by early experiences in life and in school—including homeschool.

Are Your Children Creative?

Ask a group of eight-year-olds if they are creative and 95% of them will say, “Yes.” Ask twelve-year-olds and only 50% will say, “Yes.” By the time students finish school, only 5% say they are creative. The fact is we are all born with creativity, but it is pulled, wrenched, strangled, pried, screamed, and bored out of us by the time we are adults. Creativity can’t be tested, so it has generally been abandoned. Yet now, by questioning large numbers of successful people, it has become apparent that creativity is the key to their success. Homeschooling began as a creative explosion that was pulling children from the ranks of sameness and giving them a vision of possibilities. Then came homeschool curriculum—same old, one-cover-fits-all books and tests. Then quietly, the homeschooler began to fall back into the line of uniformity. What a crying shame!

How Can We Unleash Creativity?

Every child is born to be an artist, a storyteller, an inventor, and an explorer. Expanding creativity in children takes place when we turn them loose and teach them to have grit, determination, perseverance, and belief in what they are doing. Adults have a tendency to want to see the end of a thing, but creativity comes in bits and pieces. A creative person rarely sees the whole, only the piece he is touching at any given moment. Creativity can’t be hurried. Anything rushed is just a stamped-out repeat, and is not part of creative genius. Many years ago when I was in school, my art teacher made a dumb mistake. She had a class of gifted artists. She came to class one day and gave each of us three pieces of colored paper and told us to create a picture using those papers. She wanted us to be creative, but the idea she had in her head was just that—in her head. The three-colored project was a boring, frustrating experiment for the whole class. If the teacher had been wise, she would have shown us two or three examples of how an advertising company used three colors, and in doing so would have unleashed a ton of creativity. The most powerful way to develop creativity in your children is by example—your example and the examples of what other people have done. There is real pleasure in creativity. In studies, children who are allowed to be creative associate joy with making something new. Sometimes all a child needs to get started on a project is a good question. Instead of making a suggestion, ask a question: “Does this blue remind you of sky, water, or a pretty dress?” You might notice a child staring at a pattern on the kitchen wallpaper, so you ask, “Do you see something? I think I see an alligator in that pattern.” Homeschooling mamas are almost always in a hurry. Hurry and creativity cannot sit in the same seat. Stationing a baby or toddler in a puddle of warm sunshine that is pouring through the window, where he can stack blocks, paper, and various objects, is a simple, soothing, creative afternoon activity. Letting children play in the dirt, making roads, bridges, lakes, and buildings is creating the next generation of builders and makers. Sitting them in front of electronic media, even educational media, is killing their genius and dumbing them down. Sitting them down with a stack of workbooks that bore them silly is creating silly. Consider this: Any project that they get involved in—whether it be music, painting, mud building, writing, storytelling, stacking, making tents, performing plays, making cameras, or whatever—that results in someone being able to say, “Wow, that is interesting. What are you going to do next?” is creativity.

Old School, New School

As children mature, creativity will begin to involve long-term projects. Songs that need hours of careful trial and error, poems, stories, articles, term papers, research, building projects, etc. can lead to frustration or despair without patience. Encouraging a budding mind to persevere is critical. An important lesson in life that will be reflected in all areas of maturity and godliness is learning that life is work, and that rewards for greatness only come with time and energy. You don’t immediately become an expert musician, artist, writer, or builder. Good things come to those who stick with it. This lesson could be called discipline: learning to harness your feelings and drives for the greater good of tomorrow. Schoolbooks are set up for short-term accomplishment. “Finish your pages and then you will be through,” I have heard said a hundred times. The end of today’s torment is near…yeah! This type of schooling does little to teach children the value of delaying gratification. School projects are a much better way of teaching, and they are certainly more conducive to developing good character. In today’s society, knowing how to research is a thousand times better than knowing facts. Information is now at our fingertips. We live in a different world than we did 25 years ago, yet homeschooling curriculums are developed in the old world of knowledge. Once, schools were the gatekeepers of knowledge and memorization was the key to success. We tested a child’s ability to regurgitate facts and formulas. That day is over. Yet even in the old-school program, children came home each evening to run and play, chase the wind, and build doghouses. There were hours of creativity that children don’t experience today due to electronics. I would that all children become tinkers and thinkers. If we are to remain a free, strong, and confident people, then this next generation needs to dream, create, work hard to make it happen, and then take the next risk.

Questions to Ask

Are you homeschooling your child in a way that cultivates creativity or that stifles it?
Is your household structured to encourage creativity?
Are you so regimented in finishing school books that you leave no place for developing creativity, leaving your children to face a dull life, not becoming accomplished in business?

Facts to Consider

From the perspective of CEOs, creativity is now the most-valued quality in a potential employee. In an IBM research study, about 60% of the CEOs polled cited creativity as the most important leadership quality.
In the world of business, studies prove there is a strong connection between trust, character, and creativity. Trust in a company, a family, and even in a government, unleashes creativity. The knowledge that we are all working to make a better life for everyone causes an individual to reach for greater ways to serve others. This environment of goodwill allows followers to take risk. Risk is associated with creativity. Where there is no scary risk, there is no creativity.
Creative individuals are naturally more unafraid of experimenting with new things. They think more about ideas and less about what people think of them, thus they are often less susceptible to peer pressure. Studies show creative people tend to be self-reliant and willing to go against conventional “wisdom.”

Creativity Killers

Don’t patronize children by offering rewards for their creative labor, for it will steal their pleasure.
Be careful not to make your child a nervous wreck by unconsciously setting up expectations of grandeur. Be practical in your expectations, and let his vision of what he can do grow with his abilities.
When your children are involved in creativity, don’t hover over them instructing them on how to improve their creations.
If your child is making something, don’t feel compelled to evaluate his project.
So you’re an adult and can show your child how to do it better—don’t. Let him have the joy of discovery. It is much more valuable than the outcome
Please don’t set up creative projects that suit your house-cleaning habits. Take the kids to the library and turn them loose on ideas. You might sit on the floor and look through “how-to” books with them. Let them come up with ideas they would like to try. You can coach but don’t poach.

School Adventures

Shalom (Pearl) Brand — Fri, 15 Feb 2013 14:04:39 +0000

School time is never without some new adventure in the works, and this last week was no different. We were sitting around the table working on math when my nephew Jeremiah, who was looking out the window daydreaming, exclaimed that it was snowing. We all ran for the door, but to our disappointment, it was not snowing but sleeting. Snow and sleet are very rare where we live, so the children were too excited to continue with school as usual—if there is a usual. Gracie and Jeremiah wanted to go out and pick up the sleet, which they did. Seeing this as an opportunity to teach them something, I brought them back into the house and told them we were going to learn why it was sleeting and where it comes from. I started by putting in an earth science DVD that my sister had brought over to share with us. They had watched this before, but it had not sunk in. It was about five minutes long, and the kids were amazed at how sleet froze in midair and hail was just tossed around before it fell to the ground. We then went to the computer and I opened the weather app and showed them how the different colors meant different things. They saw that we were in the sleeting color and that it was snowing north of us and raining south of us. We then went to the porch and looked at the thermometer to see how cold it was. We talked about the temperature and what it meant; they saw that it was above freezing right then. After this they went outside to look at the sleet again and to bring in bowls full to examine. It has been a week since that day. I just asked them questions about how sleet and snow are made, and they have not forgotten a thing. School is fun when you look at it as an adventure in discovery and learning. We also have a science kit where we mix different elements to make dancing water or a colorful waterfall, or just watch red cabbage water turn blue when you add baking soda, or turn pink when you add citric acid, then turn clear again if you let it sit for a few days. It raises questions that they want answered. Questions are the root of all learning. Last week we mixed baking soda and citric acid together to make carbon dioxide gas, and then we talked about it. Afterward the kids watched a ten-minute science show on the lungs and how we inhale oxygen and exhale carbon dioxide. Today as Jeremiah was doing school he was reading in his second-grade pace science book about fish and how they take the oxygen out of the water. He stopped reading and asked, “How do they get rid of the carbon dioxide?” So we stopped working in the workbooks and went to the computer. With great excitement all five kids stood around me, and with the baby in my lap we looked it up on the computer. Soon we were learning all kinds of fun facts. The kids were interested and asked if they could make some more carbon dioxide. So back to the science kit we went. From my eight-year-old to my sister’s two-year-old, we all sat around the table again and watched the baking soda and citric acid bubble and fizz. It is when children ask questions and we take the time to answer that they learn the most. But some questions I am happy to leave for another day. Today as Jeremiah was reading his book on fish, out loud at the table, it said that fish lay their eggs in warm water when the days grow longer. Gracie, who was listening along as she did her school at the table, interrupted. “How do they make the babies? Are there daddies? Do they kiss under water?” Jeremiah excitedly jumped up and said, “Lets go look it up on the computer!”

Answering Homeschool Questions

Debi Pearl — Fri, 14 Dec 2012 14:02:37 +0000

From a Letter

Hello Pearls, My question is about homeschooling. I have been reading your articles on the subject, and, being a homeschool graduate myself, who hated school when I was younger, I have been finding them very intriguing. I’m confused on a few points, however. I know you are very busy and don’t have time to answer every question you receive, but I am wondering if you would consider writing another article or doing a Cane Creek Corner video on the subject. All of the homeschooling families I know (and there are quite a few in my area) more or less mimic a classroom environment, and most of their kids hate school. I’ve discussed your methods with my mom and the idea makes sense, but there are some things we don’t understand about how it works. My younger brother will be in 7th grade this fall and he hates school with a passion. This seems to be a great need, and I like the sound of your methods, but…I understand the idea of not forcing kids to learn when they’re too young and letting them learn at their own pace. I’ve heard that before from other sources as well, and it makes sense. They will catch up when their minds are ready. You write that for a few years they will be behind the children in school, but by the time they are 16 they will be 3 years ahead. My question, however, is how is that possible when they spend so little time studying? You say “Rather than the imbalance of six hours of study and one hour of recess, for the six- to ten-year-old let there be one hour of study, five hours of recess, and two hours of work.” That makes sense for such young children, but what about when they get older? And what else is there to keep him out of mischief besides schoolwork?

Debi Answers

When I was young, I hated school, and I was a poor student. Once I was free of school, I really started learning. What interested me were ideas, concepts, possibilities, and communication. What I had to learn in school were facts, spelling, and math. Those I could do without. So when my children came along, I decided to teach them what I loved. And they loved to learn. Only one in five could spell, but I thought, “No matter.” Well, it does matter—just ask Shoshanna, who owns The Bulk Herb Store and writes professionally. Or you can ask Nathan, who also is a teacher and writer. And if they don’t convince you, ask Shalom. She has a very popular blog—NGJ’s most popular BY FAR—and her spelling is poor. So not being able to spell is a problem but not a life issue. There is a difference.

I would much rather have the gift of writing than the discipline of good spelling.

In answer to the letter, I do think most homeschooling mamas have forgotten that for school to be successful, the children must enjoy it. If I had a choice (and I am sure my grown homeschooled children who are accomplished in communication would agree) I would much rather have the gift of writing than the discipline of good spelling. Being able to reach into someone’s soul and mind with words is wonderful. Creating a challenge with words and seeing it work in thousands of people’s hearts is too marvelous to explain. Just this past week I read a small ditty that Nathan Pearl wrote on Facebook about his sister Shoshanna. Within minutes his short tale had hundreds of likes and shares. It was just an entertaining narrative, but it communicated fun, concern for others, and a brother and sister relating as only brothers and sisters can. It was cute. Nathan really works at spelling now that he is in the world of communications. He will learn fast enough, I hope. I must confess that I never did master spelling and neither did his daddy. But we are both professional writers who have published many books now in print in over 40 languages—with over 1.5 million copies in print around the world! We poor spellers have gone far beyond our mechanical skills. I tell you this tale for a very important reason. I think homeschooling has “lost its first love.” At the beginning, when the idea of homeschooling was young and daring, we didn’t care about keeping up with the Joneses’ school grades. We were a generation who grew up in the hippy age, and we wanted our children to be freethinkers. We wanted them to make decisions based on conviction. We raised them to be shakers and changers, not good little models for the homeschool arenas. I didn’t care if they were up on history as long as they could read history and have an intelligent conversation about why Napoleon’s strategy was faulty or why Hitler was allowed a reign of terror over so many without anyone taking him down, and how God judged the Germans for allowing such a man to come to power. I wanted them to think about consequences—eternal consequences on nations, families, and individuals. Another reason I valued teaching concepts and ideas rather than facts was because I wanted my kids to be leaders, to bear responsibility, and to always feel it was their honor to work hard and provide for others. Facts alone didn’t cultivate them to that end. Knowing the whys and wherefores did. When a child is force-fed a curriculum that he doesn’t find relevant, he will be bored and tormented for hours every day. He may learn the mechanics of a liberal education, but it will not liberate his spirit to love investigative learning. The negative feelings he experiences daily, and the criticism that comes from his teachers or parents, will ingrain in him a sense of failure and generate a poor self-image. He will be able to spell, but will never have a vision to write creatively. When homeschooling is not fun, it is not real homeschooling—at least not what us old-timers who started the movement meant homeschooling to be. Sitting down to a stack of boring books and learning a pile of facts you don’t care about is for Nazis, not homeschoolers. We are a people of ideas, dreams, and possibilities—not fodder for the status quo.

At the beginning when the idea of homeschooling was young and daring, we didn’t care about keeping up with the Joneses’ school grades.

What I did 35 years ago as a pioneer homeschool mom was set up a 6,000-year timeline, a map of the world, and a place to pin stuff up on the wall. Any time we read a story or book (free library resources) about an event in history, a people group, or even literature, music, or art, I put it up where it belonged on the timeline and strung a string to the place on the map. Even the history of missionaries made it up on the wall. The kids had an understanding of time, people, events, Bible stories, and even weather and natural catastrophes, seeing at it all as a whole. Their learning wasn’t a confused mountain of tiny puzzle pieces of information. This process allowed them to make judgments and to see the hand of God work in history. If you ever watch Nathan teach on Contend For Your Faith, you will see how this type of teaching shaped a serious history buff, yet he never had a history textbook while being homeschooled. He is also a science buff, yet we never—not one time—went through a science curriculum book. Never. Now, I know many moms would rather just use store-bought curriculum. I did not have that option. When homeschooling was in its infancy, there were no pre-made curriculums, and I am seriously glad of that vacuum, because I was forced to create my own. I am a better person for the effort, and my kids have a wider understanding of life…it’s called wisdom. I can hear the loud fray of rebellious homeschooling moms calling out to me to mind my own business. Hey, girlies, YOU ARE MY BUSINESS. The Bible says, “let the aged women teach the younger.” At this time in my life, I have definitely qualified as aged. My advice to you is to use your curriculum, but don’t use it like the Old Testament law. Completing every page is not necessary. Get off the treadmill and learn to walk in the sunlight, discovering real-life things while you learn facts. Go to the library every week and check out books that pertain to your week’s project. Over the years we studied volcanoes, spiders, Indians, herbs, wind currents, trees, and hundreds of other interesting topics. Start a book club and train your children to read to younger children when you have meetings. Teach them dramatics in reading—children love this.

Get off the treadmill and learn to walk in the sunlight, discovering real-life things while you learn facts.

Make it a practice to read out loud to your children…a lot. We read cowboy stories, mysteries, science fiction and nonfiction, and a lot of missionary biographies. A wonderful way to teach creative writing is every evening at bedtime, make up wild, long, to-be-continued tales stopping often to say, “And what do you think happened next?” Work their ideas into your story. Have them do art during the day that depicts the story. And by all means, make a timeline. Even a short family timeline is fun and a learning experience. So, yes, I miss my homeschooling days. Even for me, as the homeschooling mom, they were fun. Homeschooling and learning can and should be a real pleasure for the whole gang. It is your job to make sure it is.

Does Your Kid Hate Homeschooling?

Debi Pearl — Fri, 14 Dec 2012 14:01:18 +0000

This week I was talking with a retired public school teacher. She told me that over her 40 years of teaching the most disturbing change in the public school philosophy and curriculum was the decreasing emphasis upon training children to develop workable skills, and a failure to instill productivity and personal responsibility. She said that over the last 15 years young adults graduated with no clue as to what they would do next, so they did nothing but “play on the computer or hang-out.” Sadly, I have observed the same trend among homeschoolers. Ten years ago I sent out an appeal for homeschooling ideas. I was riveted to the letters as I read the wonderful, original and fun approaches to instilling initiative and resilient working skills in children. That was about the time Mike had a heart attack, so in the drama I forgot about my treasure stash of ideas. This past summer, after reading so many letters, and hearing the frustration of homeschooling mothers, my attention again turned to the need to share our best home schooling ideas with frustrated mothers. So I dug out the file of 10-year-old letters and sent out a fresh appeal for the latest home schooling ideas. The contrast was shocking. Something has happened in the last 10 years. Mothers are either burdened or rigid in their prepared, traditional approach to teaching children at home. I am reluctant to call it home schooling. The contrast 10 years later is a wake-up call. Do some of your children hate school? If so, it is probably because what is being taught does not translate into real life; it is not favorable to producing creative thinkers, entrepreneurs, nor does it provoke kids to love work and assume responsibility. My upcoming book, Homeschooling Winners, is a collection of the most impressive ideas I received, as well as what I have learned in teaching parents how to prepare children to hit the road running. And it is coming soon, but not soon enough for my liking. So I decided to include some of the ideas in this magazine. The ideas are 10 years old, which means the children in training are now successful business owners. Be sure to read “Camera Hogs” (below). You will find the old ideas listed below. Remember these ideas have been tried and proven to be wonderfully successful. So, go and do likewise. But, be warned. Your children will probably be heard begging, “Hey, Mom, please, can we do school?”

Camera Hogs

When I only had three small, bickering children, I stumbled upon an idea that changed our lives. I pulled out the movie camera one day and showed them how ugly they were when they fussed and fought. It did shock them, but it also had an unexpected effect—it made them want to make movies. They started out just talking or telling stories. We soon gathered a large box of wigs, costumes, and other props that included stuffed animals. I would read a Bible story (now we use Good and Evil) and they would decide who would be which character and then dress up for the role they would play. I manned the camera. We got very imaginative telling stories like the raising of Lazarus from the dead, and the rich man in hell. They basically acted out the whole life of Moses. (They were shocked to learn he killed a guy.) The story of Samson and Delilah was interesting and hard to explain, but they loved doing the Last Supper because each of them played more than just one character. We used a flashlight under the bed for dark drama. A single story would take the whole afternoon to film and a week or more to prepare for. Sometimes I just narrated the story and sometimes they created their lines. Over the years we have covered an enormous amount of Scripture, and the children know a wealth of Bible history. They learned drama, memorization, and how to perform in front of others. They became skilled at camera work, lighting, and sound systems—all the parts of production that make a movie interesting. They quickly learned film editing, which involves more than anyone could imagine. They have long since left me behind. Now we have a huge library of dramas that they enjoy watching when we need a big laugh. It is fun to watch the children grow up in these films. All my children are gifted actors, and any of them are capable of stepping into a job behind a camera or behind a computer, editing. Their friends’ parents stuck by the books so they could have a complete education, but now these grown kids have no marketable skills. As I write this, I think back and bless the day I first picked up the camera to show them how naughty they were acting.

Grandfather’s Gift of Change

Even though I am only 15 years old, I want to tell you how my grandfather got the idea of spending money wisely across to me. I was just 12 years old when he took me to the grocery store and handed me the grocery list and money to pay for the food. He told me that I had to get everything on the list with the money in hand, but whatever was left over I could keep. Looking at those twenty-dollar bills was so exciting until I started down the aisle of the store with my calculator, adding up the items. Several times I had to go back and find a lower-priced item, which meant I could not buy name-brand goods. Until that day, I had never even noticed name-brand prices being so much higher. Finally, I finished my list. I carefully went back over it to make sure I had everything. As I unloaded my cart at the checkout, I was very happy to know that I had some money to spare. It was just a little change, but I had managed to buy everything. Now, three years later, I don’t remember how much change was left from that first shopping expedition, but I do know that what I learned was priceless. Thanks, Grandpa. Anne

Solar System

We made a solar system model out of lightweight foam and painted it with reflective paint. I fashioned a night sky to put on the ceiling, and then hung the sun, planets, and moons in place. At a yard sale, I found a clock that has a very dim, moving night sky so when the main lights are out, the tiny, star-shaped lights cross over our planets, and the reflective ceiling adds to the whole scene. It is the coolest thing possible. When I tuck the kids in bed, I tell them my own “Star Wars” story about God’s throne with the flashing lights and a crystal floor as it’s described in Revelation. I tell about the angels being huge warriors sent to help us, and about the four beasts with the giant wings standing around the throne, saying, “Holy, holy, holy,” and they love it.

Recipe Books

Most libraries have a “for sale” room where you can obtain (either free or at a very low cost) out-of-date cooking magazines. I pick up a few each time we go to the library. As we get the magazines, we look through them and mark with different-colored paper stickers recipes that catch our eyes. A gray tab means it is a main-dish recipe that has meat in it, yellow is for beans, green for salad, pink for dessert, etc. The children have new photo albums that they are using to create their personal cookbooks. Once a month we go through our magazines, cutting out a few recipes and pictures they like best to add to their own photo books. One child is making a cake cookbook, the other a salad cookbook, and the third, a cookbook for meat dishes. This year the children are making recipe books that they will give as gifts to someone special. They really love doing this because they see me using my recipe book that we built together last year. They also see that I am always adding recipes or taking out recipes that I no longer like. Once a month each of the children chooses a recipe to cook for the family (with my help). If we all like the dish, then it is a keeper for the family recipe book. If not, we pull the recipe out of the picture slot and discard it. My children are becoming good cooks while making great memories. And the recipe books they give as gifts to Grandma and Auntie will be their legacy.

Know Your Child

Yesterday I had a wonderful day with my 7-year-old son. I drove two hours to my parents’ house and dropped off the other children for their once-a-month night over. Usually their stay-over coincides with a time their truck-driving daddy is home, which allows us to have a date night. But this time Dad was on the road, so I told my son this would be his special time. I had never done this before, but I had noticed my son seemed to be getting distant and short-tempered, and he had come to hate homeschooling. His growing bad attitude set off my alarms. When we got back to our town, we went straight to the library for books that I could read to him that evening. We stopped by the grocery where I bought fried chicken and biscuits, and we shared a picnic at the park. Afterwards, we played on the swings and slides and just chased each other around, laughing, until it was almost dark. Even though it was evening by the time we got home, we did his school lessons together. He really loved working one-on-one, especially since it only took a short time with my undivided attention. Then we sat together in the big chair and read all the library books he had picked out earlier in the day. He said he wished he had checked out a hundred!

Deb says, Look into your child’s eyes, to show your love for them.

At bedtime, I lay beside him and told stories of when he was little, and then stories of when I was little. Sometime during the evening he started talking. He told me everything he could think of and some of it twice. I really came to know my son as a human being. He wasn’t just my baby, or even just my son; he was an individual who had ideas and dreams. Finally we prayed together and I climbed over into the other twin bed. I heard his long, contented sigh, and then he said, “This is the best day I ever had. Thank you, Mama.” I have to say that I cried. So many times I have taken my children to this exciting activity or that great learning event or even out to a fine dinner, but just to spend the time being a one-on-one mama had escaped me. So, yes, this is my best homeschool idea.

The Making of a Doctor

Our 9-year-old son wants to be a doctor like his grandpa. Grammy takes his hopes seriously. She took his picture, had it blown up to life-size, glued it to cardboard, and cut it out. She mailed it to him and told him to hang it on his wall because she would be sending him schoolwork every week. And she does. Every week in the mail (he loves getting mail) he receives a learning page about a different body part as well as a picture of the body part to color and pin on his cardboard cutout. This week she sent him a line drawing of the brain that he colored and taped over his head. She also sent a page telling how the different sections of the brain function. After reading this page, he taped it up beside the picture of his head and ran colored strings from the page to the brain. What makes a doctor? A grandmother who believes in dreams and makes them happen. She is homeschooling a future doctor from afar. We email her an updated picture each week, and she loves that.

Blind-Folding Mommy

I wanted to teach my children how to give good directions, so I took them on a tour of our house. Just like in a tour, I talked them through as we walked in the front door and through the rest of the house. Then I gave each one a starting place and told them to write directions that would lead to the kitchen table. When they were finished, I had them put a blindfold on me and I began following their directions as they read them aloud. I ran into walls, missed steps, and basically never made it to the kitchen table. The next day they tried again with a reward going to the one who could get me to the kitchen table without any mishaps. Each week we stretch out a little farther in learning to give directions—first in the yard, next in the neighborhood, and then in the city. We bought a world map and started “traveling” everywhere, and our directions began to include ships and trains, hours and time changes, etc. Now my children are all tremendous at giving directions and have a great deal of confidence about it. At church the other day, a lady was trying to give directions to her friend regarding how to get to the upcoming school play. My 10-year-old son politely said, “Excuse me, Mrs. Arnold, but if you turn right, you will be at Hardees. The correct directions are…” Both ladies stared with expressions of utter surprise and then looked at me, obviously impressed. “Where does this boy go to school?” He looked up at me sweetly and then answered for me, “Oh, my mom homeschools us.”

Greater Expectations

Debi Pearl — Fri, 15 Jun 2012 15:00:19 +0000

What makes some people seem to soar, excited to learn, to grow, to take on one challenge after another and still be capable of more? What makes a person so satisfied and enthusiastic about life that he wants to share his knowledge with everyone, knowing he has something worth sharing? How can you take your children to that place? For that matter, how can you get there yourself? God did not design us to idle away in endless boredom with no challenges, waiting for life to happen. Nor are we designed to exist in a state of distraction, always being entertained. We were not created to live like pigs in self-indulgence. God expects more from his creation. There is no joy or satisfaction apart from personal growth, fulfilling the yearning to know. God instilled in us the drive to excel. Life is best in the pursuit of knowledge and wisdom, in sharing what we learn, in hopes and dreams and a struggle to overcome. Winners feel better than losers, and God created us to win—not in a contest with others, but in our struggle against the world, the flesh, and the devil, against the demons of doubt, ignorance, and inaction. As we strive to know, we will grow. This brings glory to the one in whose image we are created, and it prepares us to be worthy and interesting sons and daughters in his coming kingdom. We should be constantly stimulated with possibilities. Man performs best when focused and committed. How can I build a better boat, construct a more effective website, write a better musical, or win the world to Christ? Perhaps I shall do it all! Ah, but when a couple shares a dream and the burden of making that dream come true, they are functioning in the highest calling. When the entire family—with all the children—shares the pursuit of a vision, it grows the children into strong leaders. This is what sets some families apart from all others—a vision, a purpose, and a willingness to work together to realize something greater than themselves. A family that lives unto itself with no vision beyond surviving will wither and waste away while the children peek through the curtain at the world they distrust and fear. The truly successful family shares a dream and pours its combined energies into making it reality. I have observed families excel in this regard. No one had to tell them they needed a dream; it was just a natural part of their makeup. I know other families that have raised well-educated but useless daughters and weak men who lacked confidence. Both extremes were sincere and wanted what was best for their children, but one family invested their talents while another buried them out of fear. Children’s success starts with Mom and Dad. It starts with the parent (one or both) ready to lead the charge. Most things are more easily caught than taught. Living a life with vision is one of those things that must be caught. A child can catch small visions from a friend, a pastor, or another kid, but vision comes most readily when parents take the little guys by the hand and say, “See? Isn’t this neat?” For example: As I sit here typing, I look out the window down to the herb garden and watch Jeremiah playing with the other children. He suddenly lunges into a prostrate position, landing with his face inches from a small pool of water. I can tell that he is lost to the noises and movements around him and the hard, chilled feel of the rocks beneath him. He is still and silent, watching as the first tiny tadpole escapes its transparent cord. From where I sit I can’t see the tadpoles, but I know they are there because we have studied the cluster of eggs for the last several days and have excitedly observed the transformation as they develop into tiny fishlike creatures. Jeremiah’s fascination with tadpoles did not start at this moment. Although he would not remember the occasion, it started before he was two years old. I know because I was there when the mystery of the tadpole was first discovered. He was just a stumbling toddler the day one of his older cousins (a four-year-old) took him by the hand as they made their way along with five or six other small children to watch a thousand tadpoles all wriggle free into the murky waters for their very first swim. He was there again, standing at the side of the mudhole, when tiny frogs began to hop out onto dry land. He was at the water’s edge that day because he had been there every afternoon watching and waiting for the coming day. The reward was breathtaking. To those children, the wonder of watching tadpoles turning into frogs transcended the ordinary. The children came away wiser than their less-experienced peers because they had seen with their eyes, touched with their hands, and discussed with adults this miracle of life. It is these moments of discovery that bring satisfaction to a soul. They satisfy the need God put in us to know. This should be an hourly happening in a child’s life. Something as simple as learning to turn the water tap on and off, breaking an egg into a bowl, flushing the commode, or answering the phone in the proper manner and bringing it to Mama can all be moments of growth for the child. A child who is highly involved in the adventures of firsthand learning will be less self-centered and more interested in the world around him. A child left to himself is inclined to be silly, self-conscious, and have feelings of inferiority. Knowledge—real, firsthand knowledge that says, “I know because I experienced that”—imparts power and confidence and a greater desire to learn and share. Today’s child is prodded out of his warm bed and told to dress for school. He is fed a bowl of sugared cereal and loaded into a vehicle. At school he is just one of the herd; he sits in a row, stands in a line, plays on asphalt with all the other sad, bored kids. When he gets home in the afternoon he sits in front of a screen in a dumbed-down state, watching some other kid sing, dance, have an adventure, or do something interesting or heroic. But he feels himself to be the guy outside looking in through the window. The wonder in his soul lies dormant; he FEELS that life happens to the cool kids. Adventure is not his. He never considers that he might hold a tiny frog in his hand; he can’t conceive that he might watch a snake slowly swallow a mouse. All he knows are the animals at the zoo boringly observing him observing them. It is a freeze-frame experience. Most children live regulated, packaged lives, never feeling the awe of the moment. Their young life is spent “killing time” and trying to stay out of trouble. Children need an environment that stimulates the natural wonder in their souls. They need time to investigate, play in the mud, share a song, dream a dream. Wonder is as close as a flushing toilet. I remember the day our grandson Laife flushed our commode for the first time. I pulled the top off the water closet and showed him how the chain pulled the small plug out of the hole at the bottom, allowing the water to rush into the toilet. He seriously studied the whole workings, manipulating the mechanism, his mind captivated with the construction and flow of water. He wanted to go outside to where the septic tank lay deep in the ground. Every day, every occasion, every new thing should be squeezed for all you can get out of it. Children need to know why, how, what, and they need to participate. As a parent you are the commander-in-chief of your child. Commanders communicate vision. Most dads are at work during the day, so Mom becomes the default vision imparter. The sad fact is that many moms live in a fog of nothingness. They lead halfway lives. They halfheartedly homeschool the kids while they intermittently scan their Facebook page, reading and writing useless messages for people they don’t even know. These moms are trapped in a net of daily boredom, so they have little interest in unearthing the unknown. It is a continuation of their youth—still killing time. They experience nothing to share with their children. Hey, Mom, you were created to reflect God. It’s time to start living with eternity in your eyes. You can’t impart a vision to your sons and daughters unless you have one yourself. Regardless of your youth experiences, you CAN have a vision. Start today pouring into your children. Tell them stories of your youth or the exciting, challenging stories of a person in history; even better, read missionary stories. Get the children together and listen to Mike’s Alabama Seminar CD or watch the Good and Evil DVD. Take a walk of discovery and stop to examine the things that capture their imagination. A follow-up trip to the library or the Web is usually in order. Don’t spend your time talking on the cell phone while stealing the light of discovery from your children. This is a moment of change. Take them to a farm and ask the farmer if you can help clean a stall with your children. Show them firsthand where the eggs and milk and chicken you eat come from. Pick strawberries and blueberries, and then go home and plant your own. When you happen to see where beavers have built a dam, by all means STOP and investigate. Go home and watch old YouTube videos or documentaries about how beavers changed the landscape of America, making it a more fertile land. Let the children dig ditches in the yard and run water through them, adding beaver-like dams to show other children how beavers have played an active part in the ecology. Facilitate enough learning in your children that they become the teachers. Dance in the rain and then study what weather patterns bring the rain. Build a fire pit and cook out once a week, letting the children plan, prepare and cook the food, and then clean up. Get old cooking magazines from yard sales and let each child start making his own cookbook from cut-out recipes glued into notebooks. Plant a garden, but first study with your children several seed catalogs. Talk about the evils of GMO (genetically modified organism) seeds with your four- and six-year-olds. Tell them how God created seed but man changed it to do weird things that are now known to harm the human body, animals, and insects. What? You don’t know much about GMOs? Where have you been, Mama? Wasting your minutes, hours, and days screen-gazing or standing outside a window watching someone else have a life? No more! Homeschooling has lost its edge. Now it is just school done at home. What a drag! What a loss! Before the age of “ten thousand curriculums,” there was the library or the second-hand store for books. It was a glorious age because kids still had space to learn real stuff like where a butterfly comes from. They learned not out of a book, but by catching caterpillars and putting them in boxes. When a child’s mind is totally captivated, his soul positively motivated, and his body engaged in the moment, he will learn instantly and it will stay with him forever. I guess if I had to narrow it down I would say learning facts fills the brain but hands-on learning builds confidence that you can know and do anything. Leaders are not born; they are created through experiencing knowledge, thus gaining the confidence to lead. Small discoveries turn into middle-size dreams, and middle-size dreams realized turn into eternal visions. And it all starts in Mama’s arms. One little guy is waiting for you to open up life to him so one day he can step out on a huge mission with the confidence you built into him one shared discovery at a time. As eternal beings, we were not designed to function in an endlessly boring, non-challenging daily life—kids included. Nor were we designed to exist in a state of entertained distraction—kids ESPECIALLY. God put into us a yearning to grow to be like him, to learn, to discover, to share, to plan, to struggle to make our vision come true. He made us with a desire to rise above the mundane. We were designed after God’s nature, in his image, to be like him, to be his friend. We were not meant to just survive. Every one of us—man, woman, and child—can be satisfied only by living on the cutting edge of discovery. This is the skinny on child training: Every child needs to have his mind full of possibilities. Every day, on every occasion, open the door and share real life with your children. This is where wise sons and daughters are made, leaders opening the door for all others. Take your children by the hand and set out on a journey of discovery.

Shock: Have the Steeles stopped homeschooling?!

Joshua Steele — Sun, 15 Apr 2012 17:00:21 +0000

In one of my recent blog posts I shared some pictures of Abby receiving her first cellphone. As part of that post, I mentioned that one of our reasons for getting Abby a phone was so that we could get in touch with her while she was at school. No sooner had I published that post than I got a note from a friend in the US asking why our kids were going away to school. Maybe you asked that question too. Here’s the answer. Kelsie and I are as committed as we’ve ever been to homeschooling. Fear not: we haven’t fallen off the bandwagon. The “school” that Abby goes to is a two-hour class, three times a week at the church we attend. Our purpose in sending her there right now is primarily to help her establish a foundation in Ukrainian language skills. At the school, they mostly sing songs, paint pictures, and—believe it or not—have a 30-minute English class! The primary benefit is that for two hours Abby is forced to interact with children and adults that speak to her almost exclusively in Ukrainian. That’s something we can’t give her very well at home. At home, we speak English. But since we live in Ukraine, we believe that our kids need to speak Ukrainian well. This is not only a matter of culture but of security. For example, if, God forbid, Abby or one of the other kids were to get separated from us in town somewhere, they need to be able to tell someone who they are, where they live, etc. So “school”, as we call it, is more like “language lessons.” Abby is already doing her regular school subjects at home with Kelsie, and based on her progress in Ukrainian, we will probably discontinue that class after the spring semester is over. I think it’s important to remember that homeschooling is not defined simply as filling out textbooks within the four walls of the family domicile. The vision and power of homeschooling is about parents taking responsibility for directing both the character training and academic development of their children. In modern society, the trend is to pass off that God-given duty to someone else, often the State. We, like many thousands of other parents, have seen the dangers and shortcomings of America’s current public school system, and we desire to give our children something much better. That said, we also believe that delegation is a big part of successful education. The job of the homeschool parent is not to know all there is to know about every academic subject so as to personally impart that knowledge to the child. Rather, the wise homeschool parent takes charge of the child’s entire training program – both spiritual and academic – teaching personally when possible, and bringing in carefully selected tutors when needed. It is our belief that parents are the principals of their own schools. It is the parents who are the most qualified to select the teachers and subjects best suited for each of their children. This managed education paradigm is in itself a valuable asset for any child as he enters adulthood. Even though I am married and working as a full-time missionary, I am constantly learning new things. I am the manager of my own continuing education. I certainly don’t know everything—far from it—but I do know how to learn anything I need to learn. The world is my classroom, and when I need a new skill, I simply seek out the appropriate resources and educate myself. This might involve reading a book, doing a series of Google searches, watching screencasts, or even attending college classes. But the important thing is that I am in charge of my education. I choose to learn things that are relevant to the work I am doing. Education is simply a means to an end. In the real world, you don’t get any tangible credit for simply completing a course of training. You don’t even get much credit for demonstrating that you are proficient in a particular skill. (Your diploma alone won’t feed you.) A person gets credit for applying his skills in a useful manner that is marketable to someone else. If you do that, you get paid. The key issue is not so much the path you choose to acquire new skills, but your ability to use those skills profitably. Granted, demonstrating that you completed your education at this or that university has value, but in the end employers don’t pay their employees for attending a particular school. Employees get paid because they do the job they were hired to do. If they can’t or won’t do their job, their education won’t keep them from being fired. That’s the real world, and that’s the world for which parents should be preparing their children. I’ll never forget something my mom told me years ago about her goals for our education. Speaking in the context of academic training, she said, “My job is to teach you to read. If I’ve done that, then I have given you your education.” Think about that. In our information-oriented society, reading is more important than ever before. One who reads well can potentially acquire an unlimited number of skills. Of course, my mom taught my siblings and me much more than reading alone. We had all the normal subjects: math, language, history, science, and so forth. But the most valuable skill she gave us was the ability to acquire knowledge independently and apply that knowledge practically. In my humble opinion, that is the essence of homeschooling.

Apprenticeship

Michael Pearl — Wed, 15 Jun 2011 11:05:04 +0000

Little Adults It may be the experience of years that causes me to view all children as little adults. They will mature so quickly. The stumbling, foolish ten-year-old will be an adult in just ten years. In twenty years it will be obvious to him and others whether his life is a success or a failure. Will this little guy or gal running around the church yard think of me favorably ten years from now? What will be his memories of me? Will he remember me as a grumpy old man that spoiled all his fun, or as someone who took interest in his life and was a friend as he was growing up? Will he come to me for counsel or say, “He is the last person I want to talk to”? I feel the need to address all children as people of worth, as souls soaking up their surroundings and forming worldviews with every experience. Each of us is a vital part of the mold that forms eternal souls. It is a grave responsibility. I still have unpleasant memories of several adults, dating back as early as four years old—some brief word spoken in passing, a slight or dismissal, a rebuke I felt was not warranted. Uncles, cousins, church leaders, school teachers, ministers, friends of the family, they knew not that in one event they left an impression by which they are still judged today. The disciples felt there were too many children crowding Jesus, preventing adult conversation, no doubt making too much noise, not appreciating the gravity of the moment, so they rebuked the adults for allowing their children to press in upon Jesus. “But when Jesus saw it, he was much displeased, and said unto them, Suffer the little children to come unto me, and forbid them not: for of such is the kingdom of God” (Mark 10:14). If we ignore the children until their untoward behavior demands our attention, we are foolishly wasting human resources. Better to bind what is not yet broken than to try to repair the shattered and wasted lives of adults. Go love a child today; see the adult in them and plant seeds that will bear fruit long after you are gone. ☺

Homeschool to Blackhawk

Marc Cohen — Wed, 15 Dec 2010 12:15:08 +0000

As I sat at my desk struggling with Saxon algebra ½, wondering what a dangling participle was and fearing the “new” homeschool diet my mom was about to test on us, I certainly didn’t think that a few years later I’d be sitting in an $8 million aircraft learning how to avoid radar- guided missiles. Since most of my friends were homeschooled and didn’t know a fist bump from a frat party, I wasn’t too focused on spending the next four years of my life in the halls of higher learning. But things seemed to change after I finished that stage after high school, where a boy likes to jump off tall things and break bones. Did I really need a degree to start a career? Did McDonald’s really have a retirement package? For those of you who aren’t content with a cubicle or helping your mom knit doilies on your 25th birthday, I may be able to help. I had a desire. I loved flying and everything related to it. God blessed me with parents who drove me to the ends of the earth so I could get that hour in the rusty old airplane or go to that pancake fly-in and meet a “real” pilot. If God’s given you a natural talent for something and a passion to do it, maybe that’s His cue. It’s not always a thundering voice from heaven. I didn’t really know exactly what I wanted to do, but I knew I needed to work hard to get it. I couldn’t rely on an $80,000 piece of paper from the state university telling others I was good at basket weaving. So instead of that, after high school I got a lot of life experience that definitely helped me get to where I am now. I worked many different jobs; I went into the woods for weeks, went on long hikes and figured out where my breaking point was. That’s not something a tenured professor can transfer into your soul. I did everything from teaching flying and delivering boxes for UPS to driving the Amish to market. It wasn’t glorious, but it was valuable, and I had a résumé. I had more than two letters behind my name. So when I looked into flying helicopters for the Army, the “undergraduate degree” required to become an officer didn’t daunt me too much. Only a handful of people are selected, and pilots make up about 0.2% of the entire Army. When it came time for my interview with a colonel and a few majors, I heard it could take up to an hour to impress them. Mine lasted about four minutes. They said they were tired of seeing unemployed history majors with nothing to offer and were always looking for people with real life experience. And it only got easier after that. I finished at the top of my class in boot camp and was an honor graduate in primary flight training and the Blackhawk course. Yes, the vast majority of pilots have degrees, but they also have $60,000 of unpaid student loans and nowhere jobs in their field. I had a passion to fly and to serve our country and a degree didn’t stand in my way. Now, with so many alternatives to traditional college it almost seems pointless to lock yourself into four years of classes you don’t really need, with people who won’t help your career at all. Granted, there are many fields that require a four-plus year degree, but most can be done online or with distance programs that build a degree for you. Distance learning and real life experience are where it’s at. God gives us the dream and desire, but we have to be the owner, coach and cheerleader to get it done. If you haven’t finished high school yet, or you’re in those awkward few years after and you just don’t know what to do, do anything that pushes you to the limit. You have stiff competition with the masses of scholared folk these days, and, as for me, I never regretted taking the jump off the edge. Marc Cohen is the youngest son of Mel and Pat Cohen. Mel serves No Greater Joy as the General Manager.

Post Nazi Germany

Michael Pearl — Thu, 15 Apr 2010 11:30:35 +0000

NGJ, Thank you for the KJV Bibles. They have been distributed to the troops. I appreciate it very much. I wrote the article below concerning homeschooling in Germany. If possible I would like Bro. Mike Pearl’s opinion and advice on the subject. I also copied the article in the press referencing my objection. An open letter to German Chancellor Angela Merkel/President Horst Kohler and the German people: 3-March-10 I was disturbed recently to learn that homeschoolers in Germany had to seek refuge in the United States because of following their conscience educating their children as they see fit was “against the law” in Germany. The government has no place dictating how a child should learn; that is the parent’s responsibility. Hearing this report, I ask myself…is it the 1930s in Germany all over again? I am currently deployed to Iraq in defense of freedom for all people. In a few days (March 7) the Iraqis will hold an election to determine if they are really interested in sharing power and living under a democracy. Why is Germany denying parents the right to educate their children as they see fit? I am a U.S. Army Chaplain and American soldier and know that the United States liberated Germany twice in the last century because of oppressive rulers/dictators and over-reach of government into citizen’s private affairs. Has Germany not learned from its oppressive past? Police are coming to German citizens’ homes in 2010 arresting parents for simply educating their children. Possibly the parents do not endorse the current culture of the public schools. Some parents may not want their children receiving information relating to sexually graphic material and information contrary to their religious beliefs. In Afghanistan in 2005 I served alongside German troops and appreciated their service and dedication to duty. We are fighting for the rights for people to exercise freedom of speech, democracy, freedom of religion as these basic rights are denied in Afghanistan by the very government we are supporting. I ask the German people to “wake up” and not stand for this oppression. This is no time to be passive. Truth is, many of the home-schooled children outshine the public-school-educated children. My wife is the president of a homeschooling group in Forsyth County, NC. By my observation the children in this group are very well-rounded and excel in college and society without government management. I do not believe that everyone needs to follow the same curriculum and learn in the same way. In the German system, for example, children are not encouraged to learn their alphabet until they are 5 years old. Has this been scientifically calculated? A home-schooled child learns at a pace decided by the people who know him best, Mom and Dad. America is still the last bastion of hope for the world. We continue to welcome your tired, your poor, and your home-schooled. —Chaplain Kevin, Winemiller, Iraq

Michael’s response:

In this post-Nazi era, apparently Germany still leans heavily toward a totalitarian society. We at NGJ have been in correspondence with German homeschool families. One such family has moved into our community and is in association with the German-speaking Mennonites of our area. They dropped in just last week to say hi and to access our internet. It is estimated that there are about 1,000 families secretly homeschooling in Germany. Europe is incrementally moving toward banning all forms of parental control. America is not far behind. So I say to all our readers, even though homeschooling is legal in all 50 states, do not take it for granted. Make sure your children are above their grade level and can pass public school’s pitiful little tests. Major on two things, reading with comprehension and basic math. They will score several grades above their level if they can read well and add, subtract, divide, and multiply. Get involved at your local level and support organizations like Home School Legal Defense. Make sure your state representatives and senators are familiar with homeschoolers. Take a group of well-mannered homeschoolers to the state capital to visit your representatives. When they are on the capital floor with an anti-homeschooling bill before them, they should have in their minds the smiling faces of a dozen homeschoolers. Just remember, the public school system is jealous of our success. Keep on keeping on. We welcome anyone from Germany, especially those forced to wear a yellow star and those who love their children enough to homeschool them.

The Good and Evil Translation Project Moves Forward with 2 New Opportunities!

Mel Cohen, CFP, RFC, RTRP, General Manager — Wed, 15 Apr 2009 11:20:02 +0000

DVD Project: To those that have joined NGJ in the translation of the Good and Evil illustrated Bible Storybook into over 25 languages worldwide we extend a heartfelt thank you. And to those of you that haven’t but want to, it is not too late! The project continues with another 40 languages in the works. The video production of the Good and Evil project is getting closer to completion. The promo video introducing this new phase will be available for download on the NGJ website June 15, 2009. This professionally produced, high quality video presents how NGJ plans to use this medium to help missionaries present the Gospel, just like the printed version does, by telling the story of God’s dealing with mankind chronologically as it is told in the Bible. If you want to be a part of this exciting new evangelism endeavor, watch the video and join NGJ in helping the Good and Evil Translation Project move forward. Five Language Project: We have received numerous calls from many individuals requesting Good and Evil color in another language to be used for ministry. Currently we have inventory in English and Spanish that we sell as well as use for ministry purposes. The sales of Good and Evil books help support the large ministry portion that Good and Evil represents. We would like to print 10,000 of each language of Good and Evil color in five languages other than English and Spanish for sales and ministry in the U.S. The cost from top to bottom on this project is about $190,000, which is well more than we have available at this time. To create an economy of scale with the printers we will have to print and pay for all five languages at the same time. There are churches and missionary organizations that minister to specific ethnic groups. If you have ministry opportunities with any of the groups below that you feel may have interest in helping us fund part or all of their language group, have them call me directly. If you feel you want to be a part of this special project, let us know. All gifts small and large are greatly appreciated for this important project. Write the language you wish to fund in the memo section of your check and we will designate your amount to that language. Call Mel at 931 593-2484 or contact Mel through email at mcohen@nogreaterjoy.org for more information. Five of these languages are being considered: Arabic, Chinese, French, Korean, German, Portuguese, and Russian. To know Him and make Him known.