Wait for it...Wait for it...

I can understand why people are so hesitant about letting children think for themselves. Trying something like the Sudbury model in the child's school and home takes a lot of time and patience. It is natural for us to have this apprehension waiting for the light bulb to turn on in a child. Why? We would rather teach them to memorize a whole bunch of stuff so we can quickly move them through the various stages of school instead of taking the time to cultivate their ability... to think for themselves. We would rather just tell them what to do (or do it for them) so we can go on with our lives. When you start creating a school environment or home environment that encourages children to think and be responsible, caring human beings, you lose a lot of time waiting for them to get there. HOWEVER, every time you give a child's mind a chance to expand through making their own decisions, teaching themselves, thinking for themselves, their brain advances a zillion steps and soon they can learn and understand so much information in a short amount of time. And every time you give a child's heart and soul time to care about others within a community you expand their heart a trillion sizes. We just have to learn to be patient while this process takes place...It's different for every child and you cannot compare one child against another. How many of you are willing to be patient as your child or student works through this process? How many of you are willing to NOT be insecure when your friends brag about how much their child has memorized or how well their child did on a standardized test? How many of you are willing to not let family members put you down for allowing the child to develop at the pace God programed into them at conception? How many of you are willing to make "Love your neighbor as thyself" just as or even more important than the learning of math, science, reading, writing?