My Childrens Education

What is it I want for my children's education?  Specifically my Love of Learners (ages 9-12)
I LOVE homeschooling my kids, I am so glad I took them out of public school.  I love spending time with my children and being the main influence in their lives.  I don't want to change that, I don't want to send them back to school.  However, I would like 3 hours a week where they went somewhere else.  Somewhere where they were having positive learning and social experiences.  Somewhere where other Leadership Education kids were gathering learning and growing together.  Preferably reading and discussing a classic together.  I don't want them just to go to a playdate, play is important, but I want it to be more valuable than a playdate. Both of my Love of Learners have expressed in different ways their desire for more positive interactions with other like minded children.  Other kids who are immersed in the classics and excited to talk about them.  They have friends, even friends who are also doing the classics with us.  They want to find more friends like this and a set consistent time to get together.  They're at an age now where they want more positive social interactions.  If I compare it to myself I have friends, lots of friends but the ones I enjoy the most and learn the most from are the ones who share my passion for Leadership Education in our book club. 
            I would ideally use the time without my Love of Learners to get something done (bills paid, desk cleaned off).  HELLO!!! Reality check! I still have 3 little kids at home and they need my attention too.  I have realized I can bond differently with my little kids with the big kids gone.   I would use the time to focus on core phase, read books and play games with my little kids.  Its a different feeling without the big kids around.  As far as the ideal of getting things done, caught up.  I recently spoke with a friend who raised 7 kids.  She said "let go of the idea of ever catching up, you never will.  Even when the kids are gone there is still more to do than will ever get done."  She said "enjoy raising your kids it will be over sooner than you think and then you will realize you still can't get everything done.  I would trade places with you in a heartbeat, be back in the mess of raising my little kids."  I have spoken with 3 different people recently who have all said they would happily go back in time, to where I am.  They would give up all their free time to be back in the depths of raising little kids again.  I think that's what I needed to hear- to help me focus on enjoying what I'm doing.  It doesn't make it any less noisy or crazy, just more enjoyable. 
    Maybe what I want is to copy what so many families do with preschool co-ops.  Find 4 families with Love of Learners who want to read the classics and discuss together.  We choose one day a week and trade whose house the kids go to, or which park they go to study the classics from 9-12.  When its my turn I read a classic with them and do an activity and play a game.  Then I have 3 weeks of mornings to spend with my Core Phaser's before its my turn to host The Love or Learners again. 
  What do you think? Are there any other Leadership Education kids out there who are feeling these same needs and would like to participate?

Paradigm Shift

My Mentoring in the Classics book for this month is Paradigm Shift. Not my favorite book, but I am glad I'm reading it.  It puts everything Oliver DeMille has been saying for years into one easy to read place and I do believe in these 7 trends.
        This is what was difficult, hard, interesting???!!!! I joined the girls from church for an impromptu gathering at the park... we ditched homeschool to go play at the park. As the kids and I drove there I listened to my intro to Paradigm Shift and then I got together with all these moms who have kids in school.  Suddenly I realized I don't relate to them anymore, last year with my kids in school I could relate.  This year my paradigm has shifted so far from theirs that there isn't much for us to discuss. They are still stuck in the old paradigm and I am in Oliver DeMilles, explanation of where the world is gong.   If  I said what I was thinking I would have for sure been labeled as weird.  Oh wait -- I was already labeled weird when I pulled my kids back out of school. I should have said what I was thinking.
   When they were talking about signing their 4th graders up for the right classes so they would have the best chance at college I should have said "college is not going to matter as much as an education in the new economy."
    When they talked about how to get their 2nd graders to finish their homework I should have said "family time and having a good family education of reading great classics together is what matters."

My kids and I are both feeling the separation between those who homeschool and those who do not.  Those who are fighting for freedom and those who are following.  Those who want greatness and accomplishing their life goals in a new economy and those who are doing the best they can but following an old mindset of school.