Catching a Vision

Chris, Caity, Marissa, and I are reading through So Much More by Anna Sophia and Elizabeth Botkin.  I would highly encourage each family with daughters to read it aloud (with Dad).  We just finished chapter 10, "Fathers, Daughters, and Highest Education",  and all really came away with a vision for continuing our daughters' education from home during the post high school years.  

This is definitely not a "women shouldn't be educated" book.  Much to the contrary!  The authors highly value education for women (as well as men).  This book is a great resource, along with another listed below, for inspiring us to help our daughters (and ourselves) gain a proper understanding of what education really is, and perhaps more importantly what it is not, as well as encouraging them to educate themselves to the fullest extent while continuing to keep their home centered focus. 

This vision isn't new to us but we now are on the threshold of needing to put a plan into action.  We are still looking into how to turn their education into a college degree using College Plus.  We don't have all the answers but we do have a vision and so we are working the "how to do this" out.  Exciting years are ahead for our girls (and many other similarly minded young ladies that we know) and we are so blessed that we will be able to continue to be a major part of their lives and get to see first hand what God is teaching them as they navigate these waters.  

Another great book to read along the lines of taking responsibility for your own education (at any age) is A Thomas Jefferson Education.  I've read this book twice, so far, and have finally talked Chris into reading it as well.  Hopefully it will go on my olders' book list for reading over Christmas break.  It is really an important book, though not authored by a Christian.  

In the So Much More chapter last night there was a quote from John Taylor Gatto, from Underground History of American Education which is available free here, that really summarizes what education is to be.  I hope it is an encouragement to you. 

"Close reading of tough-minded writing is still the best, cheapest, and quickest method known for learning to think for yourself... Reading, and rigorous discussion of that reading in a way that obliges you to formulate a position and support it against objections, is an operational definition of education in its most fundamental civilized sense....  Reading, analysis, and discussion is the way we develop reliable judgement, the principal way we come to penetrate covert movements behind the facade of public appearances. "   

Happy learning everyone!