You Can't Make a Kid Learn

You can't. They are too busy learning!

Kids are always learning and are unable to stop learning, just as they are unable to stop growing. Either of these processes, however, can be stopped, stunted, or damaged by improper input. In another blog, I go on and on about my efforts to feed my kids with the most nutritious food there is. Lots of good food...but I digress. Just as the body grows incorrectly, more slowly, or with greater stress when it is improperly fed, so does the mind. Learning is like vacuuming. The child's senses are continually taking in and processing whatever is around. Dirt, dust, hair, and legos are the preferred diet of the vacuum cleaner. Legos? Oh yes, vacuums love legos. Children love television. Therefore it follows that vacuum cleaners should be fed legos and children should be fed television programming.

I like what happens to a room full of legos when I vacuum it. The room becomes clean. I like what happens to a room full of children when I turn on the television. The children become quiet and motionless. But I don't like what happens to the vacuum cleaner and I really don't like what happens to the children. The vacuum becomes full of legos and the children become full of television content.

After this point the analogy breaks down fast, so thus ends my argument for the elimination of television in the home, rule #1 of the self-perpetuating homeschool.