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• “KNOWLEDGE THAT IS ACQUIRED UNDER COMPULSION OBTAINS NO HOLD ON THE MIND – PLATO”

• “Children are beautifully designed, by nature, to control their own education.”

If you have ever watched a child grow from birth up to “school age,” you know the statement above is true. Children come into the world with powerful educative instincts, which include their natural curiosity, playfulness, sociability, attentiveness to the activities around them, desire to grow up, and desire to do what older children and adults can do.

Through their own efforts, with essentially no instruction, children learn to walk, run, jump, and climb. They learn from scratch their native language, and with that they learn to assert their will, argue, amuse, annoy, befriend, charm, and ask questions. Through watching, listening, questioning, and in other ways exploring, they acquire an enormous amount of knowledge about the physical and social world around them. And in their play, they continuously practice skills that promote their physical, intellectual, social and emotional development.

They do all this before anyone, in any systematic way, tries to teach them anything!

This amazing drive and capacity to learn does not turn itself off when children turn five or six. However, often, the way we have set up the system of schooling, causes a child to begin to doubt their own natural ability. The most destructive lesson of schooling is that learning is WORK, to be avoided when possible. As a homeschooling parent you have the opportunity to provide an education that complements young people’s natural ways of learning and to provide appropriate conditions to see them thrive.

When using the Euka education program, there is not only room for choice but options in all activities, to allow personal adaption. Encourage your child to choose if they want to explore the hands-on task or prefer to work on the online activity sheets. A successful lesson for some is a mountain of craft supplies strewn around the kitchen table, while others feel more comfortable with an activity sheet in the folder. The important thing to remember is successful understanding of a concept or idea is the focus. With that in mind you will not fall into the trap that learning can only be measured by how many activity sheets are done. A great discussion or debate on a topic being studied is a hugely valuable learning experience.

When young people are granted the freedom and opportunity to educate themselves, outside of the boundaries of traditional school, they generally do so fully and joyfully. Through their everyday engagement with Euka learning opportunities, free play and exploration, they acquire the skills, knowledge and values needed for success in our culture