SURPRISING SUMMERTIME THOUGHTS

 

Sometimes it seems we have given more thought to how to raise a beautiful flower than we have given to how to raise a child.

Luther Burbank, a world famous horticulturist, spent his life experimenting with and raising almost unbelievably beautiful flowers. He was a man of nature and interesting opinions. Here is what he thought about raising children:

1. Keep them outside (away from books and study).

2. Respect individual differences; you cannont expect them to develop alike.

3. Be honest with the child. “The child is the purest, truest thing in the world. “

4. Don’t be cross with a child; don’t be harsh.

5. Give them the best possible environment.

6. Let them have music, art and laughter – – a good time – – one of cheerful occupation. Surround them with beauty.

7. Give them (like plants) sun and air and blue sky.

8. Shun education in the academic sense, as you would the plague.

9. Give them simple, well-balanced food.

10. The integrity of the child’s nervous system is impaired by “education” for the first ten precious years of his life.

DO YOU HAVE A GENIUS TO NURTURE?

The Spark by Kristine Barnett took my breath away. Once I had started reading, I could barely stand to put it down until I had turned the last page.

I’ve always been a human potential junkie. Somehow I intuit that all things are possible; limits are illusory and it’s just a matter of turning things in a slightly different way to achieve a WHOOSH!! into an entirely different reality.

Here is a mother with a non-speaking, severely autistic child who, by following her own loving and nurturing instincts discovered that her child had an I.Q. higher than Einstein’s. (As you may have guessed by now, I believe all non-brain dead children have genius waiting to come forth; their own sacred, hardwired SPARK.)

What did she do? She encouraged him “to lean into his passions.” She noticed that allowing children to do what they love brings all of their other skills up as well.

She says “Showing a child that you take his or her passion seriously and want to share in it is the most powerful catalyst in the world.”

This is exactly where traditional education goes off the track: it just keeps pounding all those lovely round pegs into those intractable square holes, insisting on trying to make all children just alike. Tragic – – That’s what it is.

The learning center, which is the subject of this website, will allow every child the freedom to pursue his/her passion from morning ‘til night and give strong amounts of genuine, serious support and enthusiasm.