How Can I Teach All This?

Long ago when I was first introduced to Leadership Education, I was also introduced to my ignorance and poorly educated background. Now this was 2005, post-graduate school. Having thought I had accomplished something academically, I was brought to the sad realization that, while I HAD earned degrees, I HAD NOT obtained an education.

I had to choose what to do next: was I going to shrink into the dust out of anger, fear and disillusionment, or would I start over in "preschool" and begin my education again, or build upon what little I had, with a Leadership Education paradigm?

I decided I wasn't ready to die, just yet, so I opted for #2.

I worried, initially, that I didn't have enough knowledge across the wide range of academia to be able to apply this paradigm in a homeschool setting for my children (it can be applied in any home setting, even when children attend public, private, or homeschool. The home can still be a Leadership Education home). But as I studied the "how-to's," my fears were quickly dispelled.

A recent experience, once again, excited me about the path we're on. Sai takes the kids to the Aspen Physics institute each week for a kids' science night. They host a barbecue on the lawn and have prominent scientists from around the country INSPIRE children with short presentations on various topics.

The activity begins each week with a teenage brother/sister team who do a science experiment right before the children's eyes. Sai met these teen's mother and, upon inquiring about her kids' interest in science, discovered that they are homeschooled. He then asked if she or her husband were scientists. She said neither of them were, but that they had championed their children's interests and exposed them to great mentors in the field of science. The family had been to universities for courses with their teens and just linked them with resources for their interests.

When Sai shared this with me, my thoughts were, "And to think that I may have once worried that I didn't know enough to teach some subject to my kids! I love them and I love to see them love learning; I can do just what these parents have done - admit my weaknesses and bypass them with mentors who can tutor ALL of us in our family!"

We love Aspen! We just roam around each day experiencing so much. And yet my mind sometimes wanders to think of all of the places, people and ideas there are in the world. Sometimes I think, "There's so much to learn, who has time to sit in school?"