you, not them

Apr 19, 2011

Today on our spur of the moment trip to town, I ran into a mama who had emailed me weeks ago to find out more about TJED. She joined our picnic, shared her apples and oranges with us, and her little two-year-old had a blast running around with my children. She got right to the point and asked me what TJED is and what is homeschooling really like.

What fun!

I shared the seven keys of leadership education with her along with the ideas of Core Phase, Love of Learning Phase, and Scholar Phase. She seemed really intrigued and wanted to go deeper. As we were talking about “you, not them,” she said, “Wow, that really puts the onus on you!” I smiled and said “it certainly does…sometimes it is heavy, but usually it is fun and challenging to work on me and bring them along with me.”

I’ve thought about her words throughout the day and how I am doing on “you, not them” and have decided I need to spend some time thinking about this principle and what it really means to me. I want to ask myself those hard questions about my own education. Questions like:

What example am I setting?

What do my children see me spending the most time on?

What would my children say I value above all else?

What am I learning about right now and is it what I should be learning about?

How are my reading, discussion and writing activities being shared with my children?

How much time should I spend studying each day?

How much time should I spend on the computer?

How much time should I spend cooking and cleaning?

How much time should I spend reading to/with them?

What do my children need me to be doing in my own life to help them develop in their lives?

I love doing inventories on myself and my children and it has been quite awhile since I have done one…I think it’s time.