Let me first start by saying that I was a super de-dooper, mediocre student as a child. I did have a grand imagination though. Hey we needed our imaginations back in the 60′s and 70′s, with our little black and white TV with three channels which came on only at night after dinner. No internet, no computers, no ipod, definitely no cell phones, one old black dial up phone is all we had. We played outside, ran free, swam for hours in the summer, used no sunscreen, wore no bike helmets. My mother had a whistle she would blow when she wanted us home. Sometimes we heard it and sometimes we were too far away. We came home when we were hungry. However, we had fun and as I remember, lots of it.
Back to the education part, I did not read, or I read very little and as the last child of five with a growing dysfunction taking over our family, nobody read to me either. And yet…I loved books. After having my own kids and reading to them from their infancy, My husband and I ended up being those people who decided not to send their kids to school, for better and worse, we have educated ourselves. On many days/years I have scratched my head and wondered what the heck I was doing but mostly we had so much fun and did so many cool things I have never regretted it. Fortunately, all but one of my four children have inherited my love of books.
I have read much recently about the lack of a good grounding in critical thinking. Liberal Arts Colleges are closing their doors perhaps because students feel pushed to study fields that will provide a high return in the job market. They are skills driven, not seeking to spend time thinking and contemplating. What is a Liberal Arts degree worth anyway, and what about critical thinking? University, in my opinion, is too late for this, it should start in elementary school. Why aren’t children taught logic, rhetoric, and made to read classic literature? I am not talking about fancy prep. schools but public schools. I suppose the reasons are many, probably the first of which is that many teachers aren’t familiar with classics themselves AND more importantly, they are forced to “teach to the test” with little if any choice of curriculum.
In the past several years a cornerstone of my homeschooling my own kids has been a requirement that they read classic books, one a month to be exact. These kids of mine are just like many kids in most ways, wanting to spend too much time on Facebook, Twitter and YouTube and moaning over their math. How did I get them to read classics? I took them to groups of other kids like themselves who read classic books. They sit around and discuss these books with cups of coffee, or hot cocoa and they really discuss them, in great detail, pick them apart and digest them. They love to do this, hey what’s not to love, book clubs are fun. I respect their opinions and work to create an atmosphere of trust so they all speak up. What we have found which should be no surprise to many is that classic literature can be good. It can also teach things that can not be found in text books or god forbid the dreaded anthologies which I detest. Excuse me for saying, but what a cop out. OK, I suppose if you want to study *about* literature use them, but if you want to study literature, read books for heavens sake!
We have read all kinds of books, in all genres, and not surprisingly have extrapolated, all kinds of book information to real life situations. Books have taught us spelling, history, language, and greatly increased our vocabulary, in fact, my 12 year old whipped me in Scrabble recently and I was trying. Books have stretched our minds and opinions, caused us to argue, confounded us, made us laugh and made us cry and yes occasionally bored us.
In the midst of working on a double major at university my eldest daughter has repeatedly told me the thing that most prepared her for her work there was reading the classics, forming an opinion on what she read, analyzing it, and then sharing her observations in public. This is what she spends much of her time doing at school and one reason she is doing very well. I’m with Thomas Jefferson, I do not want to live in a world without books and I feel bad for the millions who have divorced themselves from challenging reading.
in Washington DC. I hadn’t gone the year before because I had no one to accompany me. This year I had great company with my youngest daughter. Mostly what we did all day was wait in line to meet some of our favorite authors. Sara was extremely patient and a great photographer also. The absolute most exciting part was listening to 
