I've been reading "What Your Child Needs to Know When" by Robin Sampson, also the author of the "Heart of Wisdom Teaching Approach" and Heart of Wisdom unit studies. In both of these books she talks a lot about philosophies of education, worldviews, and the history of education starting from the Hebrews in Bible times up through the history of education in our country up until today. She focuses on how the Hebrews educated their children and how that is an important model for us to use and how we should reject education based on the Greek / Roman philosophies / styles.
One part of the book that has influenced me more than anything else has to do with the Hebrew perception of God and his relationship to us. In this book she talks about how the Hebrews saw God as the center of everything all day long. God was the center of school. God was the center of work. There was no compartmentalizing God to certain areas of life.
Things have changed where now God is separated for certain places in life. We take him out when we go to church on Sundays, but don't have him as a focus other times. I even take him out to "do devotions" in the morning, but seem to forget all about what I read within minutes of going into my day. It's not that I don't want God as part of my day, it's just that I've been influenced by Greek philosophies and don't have it as a habit to have God as the most important part influencing all aspects of my day.
My goal this year is to make God the center of our studies, the center of our days. To live with God in the center of my mind and in the ways we do things. I want to look at the things we do and see if they are in keeping with God being at the center of things. I want my children to see God as the most important thing in life. There is nothing more important than living life with God as the center. If God is in the center, I will have God's wisdom and guidance for the rest of the details of life. God will guide me in the other things I teach my children - things that they need to know to fulfill God's will for their lives. Our children don't need to know everything about everything. They need to know what God wants them to know and they need to know how to find the information they need to know. In putting God has the center, we trust God to guide us in all things instead of trusting in ourselves to learn everything that we think must be important. Who would we rather trust? Ourselves or God?
How do we do this? How do I get from doing my devotions and then forgetting what I read as I go into my day. One way is to frequently return to Bible reading throughout the day - to do this with the children. I'm hoping to make the Bible more of the center of our homeschooling. Robin has ideas for doing this as does the Student of the Word curriculum. I'm hoping to include God and seeking his will in planning how we spend our days both in pre-planning a schedule and in little decisions I make day by day. I'm hoping to focus on ways we can serve others in things we do and doing this with the Lord's guidance and wisdom, not just in a "I need to do this, what can I do" sort of way.
Mentally I want to change my mindset from seeing the housework we do, math we do, play the kids do as something separate from God. These can all be done to his glory in taking care of his world (doing housework), learning about his world (math and other studies), acting out living in God's world (play the kids do). We can guide these activities towards a focus on how God is involved in these areas of life as we do them. We can encourage taking care of God's world in diligently working, learning about God's world in seeing how he made it (math, science), and playing as a way of learning about God's world and how to live in it. Toys are tools for these goals, not things to make life fun for my own enjoyment. Too often toys become gods to our children instead of tools for this purpose.
So I pray that myself and my children will grow and learn that nothing in life truly matters except serving and loving God and seeking his will for us as he becomes the center of each day.
Such a good point about actively thinking about God all day long! I so struggle with this also, and we are also trying to use more of Robin's ideas, and God's ideas for schooling our children this year.
Keeping our minds stayed on Christ should be so easy, why isn't it???
Blessings on a great school year
Chris
it is easy for one to say make God part of everyday life, but most of us haven't grown up that way. your comment "we take God out on Sundays" really makes me think how we see God. i am talking about me and my family, just because one is on the missionfield doesn't mean they forget about these things too, easily caught up in activities of the day. your post has caused me athinkin' about how to rearrange somethings....thanks for sharing..
Ohhhh! I am REALLY GLAD you are reading Robin Sampson's book.
I read the What Your Child Needs To Know book before reading Heart Of Wisdom Teaching Approach.
Both Blew me away and really struck a chord.
We -were- using mfw last year and liked it a lot, but after reading Robin Sampson's Heart Of Wisdom Teaching Approach I KNEW God was telling me that "classical" teaching was wrong.
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• Sat 18 Aug 2007 - Great Post
I enjoyed reading your blog.
Darlene