Thursday, February 3, 2011

Educational Influencers

I've been making a list of books that I've read and authors that I've learned from regarding education and it's fairly long and diverse, ranging from John Holt to Susan Wise Bauer to Bill Cosby and lots of folks in between; mulling over what I've learned from each one of them and how I've applied it to my life, and in turn how it's affected my kids, and no doubt, someday, my grand kids.

My parents, too,  did a great job of providing an educational environment for my sisters and I that included lots of books and music, plays and educational field tripsalong with crazy outdoor adventures like white water rafting, hot air ballooning and 4-wheeling. I remember visiting factories on vacations, as well as parks and museums and my Dad always, I mean every.single.time had questions for the docents. They were very educationally minded and really believed, really, which shows my age, that higher education would determine how well you lived and how successful you are.

It  is interesting to me, that our of their 11 grand kids, 6 of them are at least conversational in a second language and all of those 6 have traveled internationally. Mom believed that the world was a classroom of which she was the self-appointed teacher, and would abscond with the grand kids under the guise of vacationing with them and have them write reports, interview folks and memorize long and lengthy poems.

And on Viking Man's side, his folks took the older kids cross country to their condo in Florida every single year, stopping at museums and aquariums along the way, enjoying sea-side eateries, dissecting cow eyes with them, teaching them the fine art of quality material and comparative shopping and teaching them practical skills like sewing and painting.

We've been surrounded by quality educational influencers, both irl and through books and CD's (Andrew Purdewa of IEW comes to mind. I've never met him in person but I've listened to probably every CD he's every made- excellent stuff) and for that I am grateful.

Who has influenced your educational paradigm? I'd love to hear about any books or CD's that have been particularly meaningful to you.

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