• My Favorites for 0-3 Yrs

  • You send your child to the schoolmaster, but 'tis the schoolboys who educate him. Ralph Waldo Emerson

    That best academy, a mother's knee. James Russell Lowell

    Knowledge which is acquired under compulsion obtains no hold on the mind.Plato

    There are no seven wonders of the world in the eyes of a child. There are seven million. Walt Streightiff

    Education would be much more effective if its purpose was to ensure that by the time they leave school every boy and girl should know how much they do not know, and be imbued with a lifelong desire to know it. William Haley

    Don't worry that children never listen to you; worry that they are always watching you. Robert Fulghum

    The mother's heart is the child's school-room. Henry Ward Beecher

    Mother love is the fuel that enables a normal human being to do the impossible. Marion C. Garretty

    You cannot teach a man anything; you can only help him find it within himself. Galileo Galilei

    Education is too important to be left solely to educators. Francis Keppel

    Motherhood has a very humanizing effect. Everything gets reduced to essentials. Meryl Streep

    The formative period for building character for eternity is in the nursery. The mother is queen of that realm and sways a scepter more potent than that of kings or priests. Author Unknown

    It is a thousand times better to have common sense without education than to have education without common sense. Robert G. Ingersoll

    The object of education is to prepare the young to educate themselves throughout their lives. Robert Maynard Hutchins

    The whole purpose of education is to turn mirrors into windows. Sydney J. Harris

    Education is not preparation for life; education is life itself. John Dewey

    It is easier to build strong children than to repair broken men. Frederick Douglass

    I try not to dance better than anyone else. I only try to dance better than myself.Mikhail Baryshnikov

    Only the curious will learn and only the resolute will overcome the obstacles to learning. The quest quotient has always excited me more than the intelligence quotient. Edmund S. Wilson

    Dance like no one is watching. Sing like no one is listening. Love like you’ve never been hurt and live like it’s heaven on Earth.Mark Twain

    Nothing is more terrible than ignorance in action.Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

    If the doors of perception were cleansed, every thing would appear to man as it is, infinite.William Blake

    An educational system isn't worth a great deal if it teaches young people how to make a living but doesn't teach them how to make a life. Author Unknown

    For the unlearned, old age is winter; for the learned it is the season of harvest.The Talmud

    We all die. The goal isn’t to live forever, the goal is to create something that will.Chuck Palahniuk

    Too often we give children answers to remember rather than problems to solve. Roger Lewin

    But, good gracious, you've got to educate him first. You can't expect a boy to be vicious till he's been to a good school. Saki (H. H. Munro)

    The historian is a prophet in reverse.Friedrich von Schlegel

    Feelings of worth can flourish only in an atmosphere where individual differences are appreciated, mistakes are tolerated, communication is open, and rules are flexible -- the kind of atmosphere that is found in a nurturing family. Virginia Satir

    The great difficulty in education is to get experience out of ideas. George Santayana

    Much education today is monumentally ineffective. All too often we are giving young people cut flowers when we should be teaching them to grow their own plants. John W. Gardner

    The world makes way for the man who knows where he is going.Ralph Waldo Emerson

    It is little short of a miracle that modern methods of instruction have not already completely strangled the holy curiosity of inquiry... I believe that one could even deprive a healthy beast of prey of its voraciousness if one could force it with a whip to eat continuously whether it were hungry or not... Albert Einstein

    I have never let my schooling interfere with my education. Mark Twain

    There's nothing that can help you understand your beliefs more than trying to explain them to an inquisitive child. Frank A. Clark

    Education is a progressive discovery of our ignorance. Will Durant

    [Education] consists mainly in what we have unlearned. Mark Twain

    The important thing is not so much that every child should be taught, as that every child should be given the wish to learn. John Lubbock

    My idea of education is to unsettle the minds of the young and inflame their intellects. Robert Maynard Hutchins

    To bring up a child in the way he should go, travel that way yourself once in a while. Josh Billings

    Education is a better safeguard of liberty than a standing army. Edward Everett

    One good mother is worth a hundred schoolmasters. George Herbert

    I am not a teacher; only a fellow traveler of whom you asked the way. I pointed ahead--ahead of myself as well as of you. George Bernard Shaw

    If you want children to keep their feet on the ground, put some responsibility on their shoulders. Abigail Van Buren

    If you don’t have a plan for your life, someone else does.Anthony Robbins

    Education is not filling a bucket but lighting a fire. William B. Yeats

    The primary purpose of a liberal education is to make one's mind a pleasant place in which to spend one's time. Sydney J. Harris

    An ounce of mother is worth a pound of clergy. Spanish Proverb

    The object of teaching a child is to enable him to get along without a teacher. Elbert Hubbard

    Education aims to give you a boost up the ladder of knowledge. Too often, it just gives you a cramp on one of its rungs. Martin H. Fischer

  • My Favorites for Ages 3-6

  • My Favorites for Ages 6-9

  • My Favorites For Ages 9-12

  • My Favorites for Ages 12-14

  • My Homeschool Library

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October 26, 2009

Inspire, Not Require: How I Got Music In My Blood

I mentioned in a recent post that my mom sang professionally. Her name is Sandi Griffiths and she sang on the Lawrence Welk Show for about 12 years.

Sandi, Salli in pink

My mother is on left with red hair.

This had a real impact on our family. We’ve all enjoyed singing our whole lives, although none of us have achieved degrees in music.

I want to make a connection with a concept I mentioned in my last post called “You, Not Them.” This concept involves teaching your children through your own example. Hence the importance of developing your personal talents, increasing various skills, and investing in your own passions and dreams. When your children see you doing these things, they follow your example and become passionate, too.

I have to explain to people that we don’t always do formal school in our home. We do some formal programs and curriculum with our children, but it’s usually seasonal as we feel necessary. As our children grow, we place them in more and more formal learning environments, the ones we feel are best for them at the time.

I love to have my children help me can food and make nutritious meals for our family. The time I spend working with them teaches them lifelong skills that are practical and important to me.

Children notice and absorb everything, just like little seeds germinating in rich soil. They will follow our example, whether for good or for bad. If we only force them to do the things we think are important, without leading them ourselves first, we run the risk of them developing “hate of learning.”

For example, when my kids are playing and my husband is singing while strumming his guitar in the background, they are absorbing by osmosis the lyrics and messages my husband is passionate about.

I’ve seen this principle at work many times in my own children. If I can find ways to inspire them and help them learn without forcing them, their speed and depth of learning increases exponentially.

So, without further ado, here is a video of my mother on public television, involving me at 2 yrs of age in her passion for music. It’s the Lawrence Welk Christmas show of 1972. We’re singing “Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star.”

So, the moral of the story is . . . if you want your children to learn something, think about learning or doing it yourself, or at least having them often see that for you, it is a passion.

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2 Comments

  1. Arianne says:

    This is so precious. And I can see so much of you in Lily.

    I really like your website. It’s visually appealing, easy to navigate, and the content is right up my ally. I really enjoyed your posts on birth control and homeschooling. I’ve had so many similar feelings. It’s nice to look at you and visualize what my life will be like a few years down the road.

    Best wishes. I’m going to subscribe!

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