One of the first things I needed to relearn when I started to educate my children at home was “what is education?” and what did I believe a “good” education should encompass. I also needed to relearn how an education can be delivered and measured but those are topics for another day. The reason that discovering and defining what an education is, was, and still is, such a key question is that your belief surrounding a good education is going to be the cornerstone from which your approach, philosophy and ultimately your measure for success are pivoted.
The definition of an Education can be a hotly debated topic with some definitions describing an education as “the process of receiving or giving systematic instruction” and others saying that an education is “an enlightening experience”. In other words, your education can be thought of as the knowledge that you have acquired in your lifetime but it can also be considered the experiences you have had. Both of these definitions are true however, society generally does not place as much importance on the experiences, while interestingly these can be exactly the type of education that children benefit from the most.
So is your education simply the sum of all the knowledge you have in particular topics such as Maths, English, Foreign Language, Music? or is there more to it?
Most people agree that education is a lifelong journey, one that starts at birth and continues until death as long as the desire to learn is there. One of my goals in educating my children was to ignite that desire to become an active life long learner. The goal of education as described in this blog is to facilitate the development of happy well rounded individuals that have the courage and conviction to live the life they desire while considering the world they live in and the community they are a part of. You may have you own definition of what constitutes a good education and that is great, the important thing is that you define what you believe a good education is and then you take the steps to make that your reality.
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