SS#141: Raising Children Who Love to Learn
Do you want to raise kids who love to learn? Of course you do! We all do! However, sometimes we end up confusing the end goal with the cause. We don’t learn because we love learning at first.
Rather, we love having learned, which helps us continue the pursuit past the pain and discomfort true learning does bring.
Sometimes we can use the excuse that we want our children to love learning to let them off the hook of actually learning because they don’t yet love it. We focus on making the experience pleasurable rather than instructive.
In the end, an overemphasis on love in the midst of learning prevents the goal of both learning and a love of learning.
If we actually want our kids to love learning, we homeschool moms will have to practice tough love in the midst of true learning.
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Loving Lifelong Learning
Today’s Hosts and Source
Brandy Vencel
has a 100% success rate
in math tears in her homeschool.
Mystie Winckler
educates her children to be adults, so she’s never focused on making their lives easy or fun.
Abby Wahl
persevered through her kids’ dyslexia and now has teens who choose to read.
Today’s Source: “Invitation to the Pain of Learning” by Mortimer Adler
In this essay, Adler writes that learning is not something we can acquire externally like a new suit. It is, in his own words, “an interior transformation of a person’s mind and character, a transformation which can be effected only through his own activity.”
It is as painful, but also as exhilarating, as any effort human beings make to make themselves better human beings, physically or mentally. This essay was published in The Journal of Educational Sociology in February 1941.
“Anyone who has done any thinking, even a little bit, knows that it is painful. It is hard work-in fact the very hardest that human beings are ever called upon to do. It is fatiguing, not
Mortimer Adler
refreshing. If allowed to follow the path of least resistance, no one would ever think.”
Click here to access a pdf of this essay.
Scholé Everyday: What We’re Reading
God’s Battle Plan for the Mind, David Saxton
Mystie finished this short book that collates what a variety of Puritans had to say on biblical meditation as a necessary practice for all Christians.
Slow Productivity, Cal Newport
Abby enjoyed this balanced approach to a productivity that is not hustle for the sake of hustle.
Good Fat is Good for Women: Menopause, Dr. Elizabeth Bright
Brandy is preparing for getting old.
What does it mean to have a love of learning?
We want our children to grow up with a love of learning, but that doesn’t mean that our kids start the homeschool day jumping up and down saying, ‘Mommy, I want to learn something today!’
Brandy Vencel, episode 141
A love of learning includes self-determination, a willingness to put in the work, independence, and a love of reading. It is an interest in a variety of things, not just scraping by to do the bare minimum in life. It is the intentional, prioritized pursuit of learning, not just letting the gathering of further knowledge and wisdom happen accidentally.
To know what the end goal looks like for our kids, we should ask what it looks like for us as adults, because the goal is also that our kids become adults who love to learn.
We’re raising them up to be adults, not pursuing a love of learning to make our homeschool nicer and smoother.
Someone who doesn’t love learning, settles into entertainment and just wants to get along in their daily life. They aren’t interested in doing better quality work or learning about a variety of topics.
Love as a goal, not a cause
The love is the outcome of the learning before learning is the outcome of the love. They don’t have to love first before learning anything. First they experience learning, whether they like it or not. Then they grow to love the
Love of learning doesn’t mean we have kids who learn so much on their own steam that it takes no effort from us. Love of learning doesn’t mean that our kids never have resistance, never complain, never cheat.
To disciple our kids, we require learning, not love. The love comes later, probably after it’s beneficial to our homeschools.
You’re not failing just because somebody didn’t want to do math.
Abby Wahl, episode 141
To love something, we have to persevere through the uncomfortable, difficult learning process.
Learning takes pain
Because education transforms us from the inside out, it is necessarily painful. All change is hard. Education is change, so it is hard and uncomfortable work.
He is plastic material to be improved not according to his inclinations, but according to what is good for him. But
Mortimer Adler
because he is a living thing, and not dead clay, the transformation can be effected only through
his own activity.
An adult love of learning is a recognition of the value of having learned something, not always thinking that all learning is fun and play. It’s more that you learn to enjoy knowing, and enjoy wisdom, more than finding pleasure in the process.
What do you celebrate?
After putting in the effort it takes to learn something difficult, how do you celebrate? How do you respond?
Do you say, “Wow, look at what we just did! Isn’t this interesting?” Do you relish the accomplishment and celebrate the virtue as its own reward?
Or, do you say, “Whew, at least that’s over!” and then crash and veg?
One is a response of love, the other of overwhelm and despair.
What shall we then do?
Entertainment is not education. Your educational apps and programs are actually mindless screen babysitting. It’s not education. Be honest with yourself. Don’t choose lame games to assuage your guilt for putting your kids in front of a screen.
Your kids might also need a play day and not a co-op class. Let play time be play time. It doesn’t have to be excused and justified by making it “educational.”
Learning things on YouTube or tutorials or even audiobooks still need to be balanced with reading words on a page to keep our minds sharp. Read words on a page, then have a conversation with people about it.
Don’t give yourself too much grace! Sometimes “giving yourself grace” is just letting yourself off the hook of doing hard, good things. Let your kids struggle a little bit longer than you’re comfortable with.
Mentioned in the Episode
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Listen to related episodes:
SS #140 – Rewards & Motivation
SS #112 – What is an educated person?
SS #111 – What is education?
