Tag: passion-led learning

Practical Ways to Stoke the Fire of Learning

Practical Ways to Stoke the Fire of Learning

And inspire your child to become a learner for life!

In her book “Teaching from Rest” Sarah Mackenzie references the quote, “Education is not the filling of a bucket, but the lighting of a fire.” She goes on to say “…but we must remember that a fire does indeed need to be lit, and then stoked, or else it will burn out.”

There indeed is a balance between pushing your child too much and not pushing enough, and keeping the fire stoked is part of that balancing act.

In this post, I lay out some practical ways you can stoke the fire.

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Practical Ways to Stoke the Fire

Recognize the spark.

Before you can stoke the fire in your child’s learning, you have to first recognize what sparks their interest. For some children, their interests are much more obvious. If it’s not so obvious, ask yourself: What motivates them? What types of things do they get excited about? If they had loads of free time, how would they spend it? Consider the ways they are “smart”, as that likely could shine a light on what their interests may be. 

Provide resources and opportunities.

The easiest (and cheapest!) way to provide resources is using your local library.  Find books on the topics of their choosing.  Show them youtube videos relating to their interest. Are there classes (online or in-person) they can sign up for that will help them grow and learn more? Are there simple things you can buy (or find for free) that can cultivate their learning? 

Ex: Some kids love taking things apart… You could find old appliances/computers for them to do so.

Provide time.

Allow time in your schedule to give them space to explore, wonder and create. What does your day look like? Is it scheduled to the hilt? If so, consider paring back a little to give margin so they have more breathing room to explore and dive into their interests. More time also allows for more conversations that can cultivate a culture of curiosity and wonder. 

Help them set goals.

Goals give us something to shoot for.  It can move us out of a place of laziness/complacency to action.  Are there goals you can set with your child to help them grow? A goal could be as simple as completing a project related to their interest or taking a class to grow their skills. 

Expose them to a variety of subjects and topics.

I think this point is especially important for those kiddos whose interests aren’t as obvious.  By giving a buffet of learning, we can see what interests stick. During Covid, we started to hike more as a family.  My son, whose previous interest (for YEARS!) was weather, became very interested in maps, hiking, geography, and state parks as a result. 

Tie it into the other subjects when possible.

Now, this is obviously not always possible. But when you can, tie their interests into other subjects.  Are they interested in cooking? Then find out what foods they ate in different periods of history and what they eat in different parts of the world. Minecraft (or any building activity)? Have them create builds related to what they’re learning.  Drawing/art? They can draw pictures related to what they’re learning about history/other topics (Chalkpastel.com is great for this!)

You get the idea.

Give them opportunities to teach others what they know.

In his book, Passion-Driven Education, Connor Boyack refers to this teaching of others as the protégé effect. The protégé effect is an idea introduced by Roman philosopher Seneca.  Seneca said, “While we teach, we learn.”

This could be teaching to younger siblings, or family members, or friends. It could be formal or informal. The point is when you teach something you learn it on a different level. It propels you to a place where you really know and own the information.

Ask what they would like to learn about.

This is simple, but you could just ask your child what they would like to learn about.  Chances are you already know, but you may be surprised! 

Books I recommend related to this topic:

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How Letting Our Kid Dive Into His Passion Helped Him Bloom

Inspired by a 60 Minutes Episode

Many years ago, in 2012, I was watching an episode of 60 minutes about a mom whose son had been diagnosed with moderate to severe autism and was therefore put in many therapies.  Seeing him make little to no progress, she opted to pull him from his therapies and instead focus on his strengths and interests in hopes to draw him out of the world in his head.  Her goal was to mainstream him by kindergarten, which she was able to do.

Through allowing him to pursue his interests it became apparent that this kid had an intricate brain and many of the behaviors they were trying to fix in his therapies were symptoms of his brain working in such complex ways. 

**CAVEAT: Now I realize it’s not generally wise to drop all of your kid’s therapies (though in his case it was) and also that his story is a small percentage of autistic kids (I mean hello, he is a savant with an IQ higher than Einstein’s) but I do think it holds true that when you focus on what someone is good at, rather than only trying to strengthen what is weak, they will blossom! 

This 60 Minutes episode would have a deep influence on me, though right then it was just an inspirational story.  (I recently had the chance to read the book about this incredibly moving story called THE SPARK by Kristine Barnett, which I recommend for ANY parent!) 

This blog post contains affiliate links and any purchases made through such links will result in a small commission for me (at no extra cost to you).
Our Story

At the time of watching this episode, I had two beautiful kids ages 1 & 3. Our 1-year-old son was not yet talking but we were waiting for a language explosion just as we had seen in our then 3-year-old.  Delayed talking runs in the family.  I personally didn’t talk until after age 2, and my daughter learned to both walk and talk at 18 months.  We told ourselves, he’s a boy, a 2nd born, it will come soon enough…

Well, when our son neared closer to his 2nd birthday we decided to move forward with an evaluation done by the Birth to 3 program.  We soon found out he was 50% delayed in speech along with a slew of other delays.   Speech therapy, Occupational Therapy, and Developmental Therapy were all recommended.

Early Childhood Program

We proceeded with a year of all the therapies, which thankfully were mostly done in our home.  And at age 3 he qualified for and started school at the Early Childhood program in our district.  Since therapy is automatically included in the program, we thought it would be the best option, instead of doing private therapy and working through insurance.

He still was not talking at this point, so we really had no idea what he thought about school, though he seemed happy to go.  He went for one year.  I was less than thrilled with the Early Childhood experience because 1) I had PLANNED on homeschooling and this felt like the loss of a dream to me and 2) It didn’t seem to help him with the areas he really needed help in (mainly expressive speech.)  He did have a wonderful OT while at school, but he only worked with her for 15 minutes 2x/week, and that was within a group.  It wasn’t anything like the 1:1 attention he had before for 1 hour each week.

However, I was pregnant with my youngest at the time and it was my first year of homeschooling my oldest, so I welcomed the break I received by having him in school each day for a few hours.  I was very tired due to pregnancy and now what I know was undiagnosed thyroid issues.  I look back and see that year of Early Childhood as God’s provision during that time.

Brain Balance and Beyond

Shortly after his 4th birthday, we pulled him out of school and put him in a program called Brain Balance.  Brain Balance is pretty intense and to do that AND school just seemed like too much.

When Brain Balance was over we made the somewhat scary decision to keep him home and put him in private speech and occupational therapy. I say scary because this meant the responsibility of his education rest completely on my shoulders.

While it was certainly “easy” to send him to school, and I felt less of a load because I could say “Hey, he’s in school, getting the services he needs”, the reality is it (school) hadn’t done much to help him and I knew in my gut we could accomplish more at home.  I also had that 60 Minutes episode in the back of my mind which influenced my decision.  And while I was unsure of that decision at the time,  I’m so glad I took the leap of faith to home educate him.

**Another caveat here: Early Childhood can be hugely beneficial for some kids, but it just wasn’t for mine. Every kid is different!  

Passion for Weather

It was around this time, at almost 5 years old, that it became obvious that this little dude was a little bit crazily preoccupied with the weather.   He would talk about it all the time which his therapists referred to as “perseverating”.  This immediately took me back 10 years to my very first year as a classroom teacher when I had differently wired 2E (Twice Exceptional) kid who was OBSESSED with roller coasters.  This was another way God was preparing me for my own kids. 😊

It bothered me that my kid perseverated about the weather.  I thought it necessary to help him NOT be fixated on the weather. So for a short-lived time, I would always re-direct him when he got going about the weather.  However, again, because of that 60 Minutes episode, I had this nagging prompting that this was a passion of his and it was ok and good, and even necessary to let him DIVE DEEPER into this.

So soon we would start buying weather books (that we would read to him) and instead of trying to redirect him to another topic, we allowed him to dive deep into his interest of weather.

And now?  This kid’s almost 9 and this obsession with weather is NOT. GOING. ANYWHERE.  He’s graduated from kid weather books to adult weather books and is an avid reader of fiction, non-fiction… you name it!

I attribute a lot of that to not spending so much time focusing on his weaknesses and rather, letting him lean into his strengths and watching him “grow” from there.

 

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