TRUST IN GOD'S PLAN
1) We are made in the image and likeness of God. What does that mean? Well, I think it means that we are made for Love, that is God, Who is love. Love is the ultimate truth, beauty and goodness and so I think as creatures with souls, we are attracted to and in fact, deeply long for Truth, Goodness and Beauty. Education is ultimately about discovering the good, the true and the beautiful! Therefore if God created us in His image, we naturally seek the good, the true and the beautiful, that is, we are naturally made to learn.
2) Human beings are naturally creative problem solvers. I think this is a corollary to #1. Since we are creatures with souls we have a self-consciousness that allows us to step outside of a situation and think critically. This is a hallmark of our species. We are creative, inventive; able to choose options intelligently and foresee consequences. We build things, we arrange things, we plan for things to optimize their usefulness to us. This allowed us, a relatively weaker being when compared to other animals, to survive and to become the ultimate survivalists in the natural world. This is our very nature. And so children will be natural learners because they too are creative, inventive, wondering beings who have an internal drive to control and manipulate (in a good way, usually) their surroundings.
3) Because of #1 and #2 children naturally are driven to become competent adults. All children want to learn to be independent and self-sustaining. Humankind has a long childhood with complex development, but the end goal is to emerge into competent adulthood. As parents we need to be patient with the emergence of this adulthood which may or may not correspond to our modern cultural expectations. Also, there are many things that can become obstacles in this development, mistreatment, disabilities, non-optimum situations, etc. One major qualm I have with our school system is that for most children, it actually impedes the natural learning God instilled in our very nature and it tends to disrespect individual development. Its priorities are often at odds with what is healthy and wholesome. This damages children.
4) God designed children to learn in family groups. The school system is a fairly new invention in terms of human endeavor. But part of the complementarity of marriage is that it is creates the optimal situation in which a child can be raised. A child's development, his personality, his maturity all is supported and encouraged by having healthy relationships with his family; primarily with his mother and father, but also with siblings and grandparents, etc. Therefore, it is unhealthy to take a child out of a situation which is the natural way children were intended to grow and learn, and place them in an unnatural context of many unrelated peers and strangers as instructors and role models.
5) Institutional methods do not nurture learning as it was designed to happen. Children learn through play. Schools are suspicious of this! It goes against their own institutional need to control things so as to justify their own importance. But God designed children to learn through play. Substituting mass instruction and scopes and sequences is a rather worldly approach to growing children. It is not one that reflects trust in God's plan! Children need instruction of course, but within the context of the family and within his own developmental process.
6) Play is not just whiling away the time in unproductive silliness. We've been brainwashed to think that play is less valuable than sitting at a table filling out a worksheet. But this is exactly backwards!* The worksheet is narrowing; play is broadening! Play is about imagination, creativity, inventiveness. It involves incorporating and testing reality the child has encountered. It also involves a good deal of imitation of what the child has observed. It is physical, it is mental, it is emotional, it is therapeutic. It frees a child; unlike school (or school at home) which is confining. One of the reasons often cited for the rise in anxiety in children is the loss of play time.
*I have often seen this complaint by homeschooling moms, For example: "Oh if I didn't make him sit down and work in his spelling workbook he'd spend all day playing with Legos!" Believe me, the spelling workbook is entirely unnecessary and Legos are a brilliant way to learn! Not spelling perhaps, although my middle son loved those Bioncle books. He ate them up like potato chips. The more you read, the better the spelling, usually. And he also would make detailed maps about the battles his Bionicles were waging, as well as writing little short stories and plays about them! How is it that though he never had formal spelling, he is a fine speller at the age of 23? Well, part of it is that we did do copy work as a family, but I'll get to creative ways to work in learning that doesn't happen spontaneously later in this series!
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