When I was studying for my Master’s degree, we spent whole courses exploring how people learn and why we teach the way we do. We took quizzes about kinesthetic, auditory, and visual learners. We talked about how we often teach the way we best learn. So when it came time to teach my own children at home I started thinking about the ways they would best grasp concepts within difficult subjects. And while I’ve employed some of these strategies and theories to learning…the best tool I’ve found to teach my children is to ASK QUESTIONS. Lots of them.
I started thinking about what I want my end result to be. Do I want them to just be able to regurgitate information for a test or a room full of people like a trick pony? And the answer is no. I don’t want them to be vats of useless knowledge…full to the brim of facts and statistics, theories and formulas with no ability to apply them. I want my children to think for themselves…to know where to go to find information, how to put that information together and draw a conclusion that is right and real for them.
When I teach my nursing students, it is so tempting to just want to open their brains and dump information in. I do lecture a fair amount, but I try to ask questions, to get them to take the next step to a conclusion on their own. I can’t tell you how many times potential employers would say “Just give me someone who can critically think…I can teach them to do any skill.” I think the same goes for my children.
I ask questions to teach them…to let them think things through. I want them to process the information, consider the options, weigh the results and determine why, when and how. It’s not enough for them to spit it back at me, I want them to be able to tell me why they picked what they did.
It doesn’t just go for school, but more importantly for their faith. I want my children to own their faith…not mine. I want them to follow Christ, to seek after Him and to do His will. I want them to know the Bible is true and that is sufficient for EVERYTHING. But I don’t want them to know it because I said so…I want them to know it because God said so and He called them to follow Him. I want them to find the path God has for them, not the one I want. I want them to wrestle with the tough questions, the challenges they face and I want them to ask questions and find the answer God has. More importantly, I want their faith to be tangible to them, not some paper thin replication of mine, but the kind of faith that is sturdy, the kind they’ve built with God themselves and I want them to be able to defend it to a world that will tell them they’re wrong.
I ask my children questions to teach them, to guide them, so that they can ask the questions and find the answers for themselves. By asking questions, I hope to allow my children to make what they are learning their own. I hope they will be able to know what they believe and be able to defend and articulate it. Because that’s the important part…not just the “correct” answer, but why.
Month: November 2013
Back
Some of you have noticed I’ve taken kind of a break over the last year. It wasn’t planned or necessarily intentional, but it happened. It isn’t that I stopped writing, rather, I stopped hitting the publish button.
This blog started at first as a way to keep up with family and for them to follow us while we were living a distance away. Then it morphed into a mom, wife, family kind of blog and for a time it was an outlet for me to grieve when we lost our babies. But writing has always been my outlet. It’s how I process things going on in my life, it’s how I muddle through and try to make sense of it all. I’ve always wanted this blog to be a comfortable place for you to come and share in our lives, to share struggles, victories and “hacks” for making it in life.
This last year or so has been challenging for us as a family. We’ve been loved and cared for, we’ve been hurt and abandoned, we’ve healed and grown and we’ve learned together. I’ve written a lot as a way to make sense of it. But some of what I wrote, I wrote when I was angry and hurting…and words sting. They can’t be taken back or undone. So while I wrote, I didn’t publish. It was simply for me to express safely. Someday, when I’m further out and it’s not so raw I may share, but for now they stay there in my “drafts” folder or in my own writing in my journal.
I’ve been wanting to write again to you, my readers. My brain is turning and my pen (er…fingers) are itchy to write. I have ideas and things I’d like to share. It may take a bit for me to get back in the swing of things, but I thank you for being patient with me. For waiting while I wrote for myself. So, I guess this is it. I’m back. I hope to start back writing once or twice a week. Something to share, something to get me back in the swing of blogging regularly. So grab a cup of coffee, let’s sit down and chat. I’ve got things to share…