As you gear up for the new school year, remember: 

"For God hath not given us the spirit of fear; but of power, and love, and of a sound mind." (2 Timothy 1:)

You can do this!

Art credit: Returning Home After a Day's Work by Carl von Bergen

"A man with an experience is never at the mercy of a man with an opinion."

A person can study WEH principles for a long, long time and still waver. But once you actually experience the power of a story or music or art or poetry in your own lives, or experience the freedom of learning outside a curriculum, what other people say about what you are doing matters less and less, don't you think?

Art credit: Young Girl at the Well by Johann Georg Meyer von Bremen

I am in Utah with a new grandbaby, but my husband can't come until later. I got a text from him on Sunday:
"I don't understand it. The more sugar I put in the potatoes the saltier it gets.Yikes!"
By the time I got the text, the damage was done and he had to throw out the potatoes that were supposed to go with the roast beef.
What he didn't know was that just before I left, I had filled an empty canister on the counter with a box of salt I had just bought. He assumed because of the size of the container, it was sugar. Sometimes if the potatoes had gotten too salty, adding a little sugar helped. So he kept adding 'sugar' and it kept getting worse!
I thought how that applies to learning. Sometimes we accept false assumptions about how children learn and we think if we just keep doing more of what we are doing, things will improve.
But really ,the problem is we are operating under a false assumption.
That is why it is so important to keep an open heart and to keep learning about how children learn. When you find the right way for your child, the experience should be sweet--just like the potatoes were supposed to be.
Art credit: Girl Peeling Potatoes by Albert Anker

"Beauty is everywhere--in white clouds against the blue, in the gray bole of the beech, the play of a kitten, the lovely flight and beautiful colouring of birds, in the hills and the valleys and the streams, in the wind-flower and the blossom of the broom. What we call Nature is all Beauty and delight, and the person who watches Nature closely and knows her well, like the poet Wordsworth, for example, has his Beauty Sense always active, always bringing him joy."

-- Charlotte Mason

Art credit: In the Meadow by Paul-Wilhelm Keller-Reutlingen

A little Monday morning inspiration:

If You Can Smile

If you can smile when things go wrong
And say, "It doesn't matter,"
If you can laugh off care and woe
And trouble makes you fatter;
If you can keep a happy face
When all around are blue--
Then have your head examined, Bud,
There's something wrong with you!
For one thing I've arrived at:
There are no "ands" and "buts";
The guy that's grinning all the time
Must be completely nuts.

--Author Unknown

​Art credit: Family Home from Vacation by Norman Rockwell

Kate Douglas Wiggin was one of the heart-based education pioneers who founded the kindergarten movement in the US, starting in California. You may recognize her as the author of Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm.

I just found this Foreword she wrote to a children's reader and thought it was worth passing along:

"Christ it was who disdained not the use of objects and symbols, remembering that it was the childhood of the race. He it was who spake in parables and stories, laying bare soul of man and heart of nature, and revealing each by diving analogy. He it was who took the little ones in His arms and blessed them; who set the child in the midst, saying, 'Except ye become as one of these.'

"May the afterglow that inspired teaching ever shine upon the path we are treading. May we bathe our tired spirits in its warmth and glory, and kindle our torches at the splendor of its light."

Art credit: Making a Flower String by Evert Pieters

I've posted this poem the last several years in appreciation for our husbands and fathers. We talk about mothers around here a lot--but Fathers! Oh how we need you too! And how much we love you.

Happy Father's Day

A POEM FOR MY HUSBAND

While you work, you give us the most cherished of all treasures
TIME
time...
for snuggling and cuddling
two morning-tousled lifeforms
beneath magical tents of sheets
Time...
to throw away the shopping plans
because it's ugly outside
and there's always tomorrow
Now we have time...
for glitter messes
and chocolate batter kisses
Time
to explore puddles
mountains of books
and the depths of our imagination
Your efforts allow me time...
to shape and mold
and rock and hold
THANK YOU

Thank you for adhering to unyielding, grinding schedules so that we can dance to the flow of the music each day. Thank you, my husband
for fighting traffic, office politics and the sterile business world
to give us...
Time
Together
Your sphere of equations and meetings
opens our world
to a deeper understanding of one another
Thank you for staring into a computer screen every day
So that I can gave into
our children's big, hungry eyes all day long.
Thank you for all o fus
We know how lucky we are.

​--Carol Mader

Art Credit: A Father's Return by Frederick Morgan

A little food for thought:

Oscar Wilde: "Nothing that is worth knowing can be taught."

David Bednar: "The most important learnings of life are caught--not taught." "An answer given by another person usually is not remembered for very long, if remembered at all."

Art credit: Songs of Innocence by Honor Appleton

"We are taught nearly everything except the very thing we ought to know--the art of living."

-Orisen Swett Marden

​Art credit: Song of the Bluebird by Ariane Beigneux