Love of Learning

I love learning about history. I wish I could say I have always loved learning about history, but that is not the case.

While I was in school, I never cared about the dates or the dry information provided to me in my text books. I learned very early to memorize the information necessary to regurgitate it into the fill in the blank, true-false, or fill in the circle tests.

It was easy enough…and I did as well as I wanted, but as far as loving History (or really any subject for that matter) – that just did not exist.

However, with homeschooling, my heart and my mind are in overdrive trying to catch up and truly grasp the historical context of this beautiful world that has been created for us.

Almost everything I read or desire to provide for my children must meet certain criteria. One key criteria is this – what is the historical context in which I can truly see an added benefit for my family? Is it Godly and are there historical figures I can read and learn about who used a similar technique that emphasizes the Godly Character growth I desire for my children?

Notebooking Works

Without a doubt, notebooking has that.

As I have researched, read about, and mulled over Notebooking, I have come to realize and know that notebooking has been used for many years.

Our Country’s founding Fathers were trained with Notebooking.

Yes, rather than learning information from a text-book and merely taking a test or regurgitating information, they basically rewrote their books and information from teachers – thus creating their own notebooks!

I LOVE this quote from America’s Providential History :

“The notebook method not only assures that the student acquires knowledge, but it also builds character within the individual (which is the primary purpose of education). self-government, industry, orderliness, discipline, and the ability to communicate and reason are only a few of the character qualities produced by the notebook method of education.”

As I mentioned, our founding fathers were educated using Notebooking. American’s Providential History notes that: “Many of George Washington’s early notebooks are still preserved in the Library of Congress. His life-time habits of orderliness, neatness, and consistency are readily seen within the pages of his manuscripts. His father required this of him from his first years of being educated.”

The Book goes on to explain that not only George Washington used notebooking, but also John Quincy Adams did – this is evident in a letter he wrote to his father in 1777: “P.S. – Sir, If you will be so good as to favor me with a blank-book I will transcribe the most remarkable occurrences I meet with in my reading, which will serve to fix them upon my mind.”

What is most remarkable about this request in his letter to his father is that John Quincy Adams was only 10 years old! Can you possibly imagine any ten-year old writing a letter and making such an amazing request with so much eloquence?

That is my goal….to raise leaders and to encourage my children to fix the most remarkable occurrences upon their minds!

What is your goal?