 Leadership training and education is one of several instructional strategies that help raise your children to be leaders of the future, entrepreneurs in business, elders/deacons in the church, statesmen in the community - who do the right thing. These are the leaders who will make a change in our society. My plan is to use home schooling curriculum so my own children will be excellent leaders of the future.
You may wonder why one child gets an education to become a leader and someone else receives training to follow. It really depends on the instructional strategies that are used in your home schooling curriculum. A child who learns “how to think” will become the leader of tomorrow. When a young man or woman can think outside the box, when they can think on their own, and apply their knowledge to real life situations, then he or she will become the leaders of tomorrow, rising to do what is right thing.
How do you train children to think? What homeschooling resources can you use. . . for free?
Andrew Kern, of Circe Institute, says the quality of questions you ask determines the quality of your life. Leaders have been brought up learning to ask the right questions. They do not simply think on literal terms; they think beyond the literal, evaluating and analyzing issues.
Asking questions of your students is free and easy, as well as extremely effective instructional strategy. What a terrific homeschooling resource! Questions should allow your children time to think and ponder. Your responsibility is deciding which question are the best ones to ask and leading a discussion with your students.
When questions are asked, decisions must be made. As your students answer questions, they develop the habit of making good decisions. Sometimes good decisions must be made with the mentor’s guidance. Therefore, give your students plenty of practice answering questions with you at their side. Classics are a great place to start your questioning.
Choose a classic book on your students’ reading level. Have them read the book daily and write down their thoughts about the book. Once or twice a week you, as the teacher and mentor, lead a Socratic discussion. Begin by asking simple, literal questions to give your students confidence in participating.
Once you set the stage with simple questions, start asking questions of comparison. Compare two different characters or settings. List the ideas on the board to generate more discussion. Most of all, be careful that you, as the mentor, do not answer your own questions. When there is no answer for your question, rephrase your question and wait for your students to respond. Silence is great at allowing our children to think on their own.
Leadership training is absolutely necessary as one of today’s instructional strategies. Questions and discussions are the beginning point of educating our children to be leaders who can think on their own.
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Copyright Kerry Beck, 2009
You have permission to reprint this article, as long as you don’t make any changes and include the bio below.
Kerry Beck is the author of Raising Leaders, Not Followers and Teach Your Children “How to Think” with Mentoring, which outlines ways you can lead profitable, Socratic discussions and mentor your children to become a leader who rules wisely. She would like to give you a free report & workshop about Home Schooling Curriculum at http://www.raising-leaders.com/.
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