F3 had her dance recital on Friday and Saturday. It was a busy time, but also very fun. A thought struck me as I was in the audience on Saturday morning, watching the younger girls dance alongside the older girls. As the littles struck their poses and watched and waited, the olders danced en pointe, graceful and fluid. The look in the littles’ eyes spoke of both admiration and jealousy. They adored these older dancers, who caused them to dream big; they were also jealous of them, because they had already achieved what they only hoped they would one day be able to do.
This brought to my mind Oliver DeMille’s ideas in “A Recipe for Success: A Thomas Jefferson Education in Our Home”, particularly when Mr. DeMille writes about the bookshelves in a TJED home. He wrote that our bookshelves should be organized in the stages of Core, Love of Learning, and Scholar. The bottom shelves should all be a hodgepodge of fun looking books that will draw a Core phase child in, inviting them to open up the pages and absorb the books. The next shelves up should be better organized Love of Learning books, and the highest shelves should be well-organized scholar phase books and materials. Mr. DeMille said that the core phasers should be able to look up to the love of learning shelves and think to themselves, “Wow. I can’t wait until I’m big enough to read those.” And the Love of Learners should be doing the same with the Scholar materials.
The look on those little girls’ faces accentuated that point for me. They were looking at those girls, aware of their beauty, but also aware that they were far, far above their own level. They only hoped to someday reach that level of beauty, grace, and strength. It does our children good to see what they can become, if they only persist and work to achieve their goals. A goal too easily reached doesn’t have the wisdom value of a goal that one has to strive for.
Mixed Nutts 