I was happily surprised this week when reading Chapter 4 of Volume 6 of the Original Homeschooling Series to discover that perhaps the blogger's original source was Charlotte Mason:
"It is necessary that we should all follow an ordered course, and children, even infant children, must begin in the way in which they will have to go on." Vol. 6, p.70.
Principles for habit training, authority and docility, [training] the way of the will, and methods of education can all be derived from this deceptively simple statement.
Sometimes I allow things to begin that as an individual, wife, mother, or home educator I had no intention of ever allowing, much less allowing to go on. Once they have been permitted, however, they incrementally and insidiously take over more and more territory until a bad habit is established that must be overcome... which is ever so much more difficult than not allowing the habit to develop in the first place, though it may not seem so at the moment of its inception. The cultivation of good habits requires watchfulness and diligence, and is hard work itself, particularly when it runs counter to the status quo.
I think the takeaway is that when we are at a 'beginning' we need to have a vision for the end. Not the complete picture, but at least an overarching goal or hope for what lies ahead. I am guilty too often of not taking a few moments to evaluate whether what I am doing or planning supports what I believe to be good and true. A knee-jerk, "Oh, that sounds like a good activity/curriculum/idea," or a weary, "Okay," often is not such a good idea at all.
