What’s she up to today?
We’ve homeschooled our kids since day one. Our style is closer to “unschooling” than the “schooling at home” version that was predominant during the pandemic. As such there is no set curriculum, no set times, and no set workspaces.
I love seeing where my youngest daughter Ginny sets up shop for the day and what fruit will come from her labor. Sometimes it’s in the maker space downstairs with the band saw from Grandpa. Sometimes it’s on the couch in our library. And more times than not, it’s at the kitchen table, surrounded by scissors and markers and her trusty glue gun.
Ginny is always making something. From wood to fabric to cardboard, her creativity knows no bounds. I’ve been making art for almost fifty years, and the way she sees the world and solves creative problems astounds even me.
Sometimes Kim and I try to imagine where all of this might lead someday. We have many guesses, but we know, as Steve Jobs said in his 2005 Stanford commencement address, “You can’t connect the dots looking forward; you can only connect them looking backward.”
Someday, God willing, if we’re around to see what she’s doing when she’s thirty years old, it will be fun to look back at the dots and say, “I remember when she used to…”
But for now, we know that our role as homeschooling parents is to keep fanning the flame we’ve observed. This includes stopping whatever I’m doing to supervise her on the saw, making countless trips to thrift shops and craft supply stores, and saying yes to whatever project is about to take over the entire kitchen table.
The one thing we don’t want to do is snuff out her enthusiasm by forcing her to spend time on subjects that will make her more “well-balanced.”
It’s been a hard philosophy to abide by, particularly because it goes against that of traditional schooling, of which Kim and I are both products. But we persist, having seen too many kids on the precipice of college with no idea whatsoever what they want to do with their lives, not to mention so many middle-aged adults dissatisfied with careers they have no enthusiasm for.
Writer and philosopher Aldous Huxley said, “The secret of genius is to carry the spirit of the child into old age, which means never losing your enthusiasm.”
We were each born for a specific purpose, and our childhood leaves clues. Whatever lit you up as a kid is a hint at why you were made and how you should spend your one precious life.
Granted, it’s too simplistic to assume a direct connection. I don’t think Ginny should prep her resume for Mattel because she’s spent the better part of the last few months sewing Barbie clothes and crafting accessories out of clay and cardboard.
But too often we are dissuaded by well-meaning adults who see no “realistic” future in our enthusiastic pursuits. Remember, we can’t connect the dots looking forward.
For Wilbur and Orville Wright, a passion for fight began as children, when their father gave them a small wooden toy helicopter from France. Biographer David McCullough wrote, “Orville’s first teacher in grade school remembers Orville at his desk tinkering with bits of wood. Asked what he was up to, he told her he was making a machine of a kind that he and his brother were going to fly someday.”
Of course, at the time, that was a preposterous assertion. Experts everywhere agreed that human flight was an impossibility. The brothers pursued several career paths before an interest in and study of birds helped rekindle their childhood flame. They never attended college, but mostly taught themselves math and physics by reading books and running their own experiments. This pursuit of deep knowledge was fueled by their passion, not from being forced to take a science class from 10:00 to 11:00 am every day.
This is not meant to be a treatise on the pros and cons of various forms of education.
It’s a reminder that childhood leaves clues and that you can’t connect the dots looking forward.
If you have kids or grandkids, keep an eye out for what lights them up. See what you can do to fan the flames, and don’t worry too much about how well it maps to a potential career path.
If you’re feeling stuck in life right now, look back at what fired you up as a kid. Is there any way you can resurrect it, perhaps in the form of a tinker project? Rekindle that spark, and you never know what wildfire may emerge.
Why are you here? What purpose do you serve? What should be your next step?
These are daunting, intimidating questions.
Just remember that childhood leaves clues.
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