"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