Home Education, Part 5, Or, Ideas

Post 2 of ?

Part V
Lessons As Instruments Of Education

"Children learn, to get Ideas."

As I said in my previous post, it is hard for me to wrap my head around this. An idea, in my world, works this way:

"Any ideas on what would be good for supper???"

or

"Any idea where Josie put my brush???"

or

"Do you have any idea when we can go ____???"

So there has to be a change in my mindset when trying to define what exactly an idea really is.

"The child must learn, in the second place, in order that ideas may be freely sown in the fruitful soil of his mind. 'Idea, the image or picture formed by the mind of anything external, whether sensible or spiritual.'––so, the dictionary; therefore, if the business of teaching be to furnish the child with ideas, any teaching which does not leave him possessed of a new mental image has, by so far, missed its mark. Now, just think of the listless way in which the children too often drag through reading and tables, geography and sums, and you will see that it is a rare thing for any part of any lesson to flash upon them with the vividness which leaves a mental picture behind. It is not too much to say that a morning in which a child receives no new idea is a morning wasted, however closely the little student has been kept at his books."

Well, now, that's a fresh outlook on things, isn't it?

Also,

"For the dictionary appears to me to fall short of the truth in its definition of the term 'idea.' An idea is more than an image or picture; it is, so to speak, a spiritual germ endowed with vital force––with power, that is, to grow, and to produce after its kind."

"Value of Dominant Ideas.––But how does this theory of the vital and fruitful character of ideas bear upon the education of the child? In this way: give your a child a single valuable idea, and you have done more for his education than if you had laid upon his mind the burden of bushels of information; for the child who grows up with a few dominant ideas has his self-education provided for, his career marked out."

"Lessons must furnish Ideas.––In order for the reception of an idea, the mind must be in an attitude of eager attention, and how to secure that state we have considered elsewhere. One thing more: a single idea may be a possession so precious in itself, so fruitful, that the parent cannot fitly allow the child's selection of ideas to be a matter of chance; his lessons should furnish him with such ideas as shall make for his further education."

And that's what I'm still "chewing" on.