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"Mark McCormack reported in his Success Secrets newsletter that 83% of Harvard School graduates had no goals 10 years after graduation; 14% had goals, but not in writing. The remaining three percent had written goals — and were earning 10 times as much as the group with no goals. Even the 14% whose goals were not in writing were earning three times as much as those graduates who had no goals at all." 1
There is much well-documented evidence that goals — and especially written goals — improve a person's chances of success by astronomical factors. Money was the objective measure in the example above. But it's not the only measure. In fact, other studies have proven that written goals are simply more likely to be achieved than unwritten goals, no matter what those goals may be.
We want you to benefit from having clearly defined and, hopefully, written, educational goals for your homeschooling adventure. Even more to the point, we want you to experience the kind of dramatic success you can achieve when you use a curriculum that aligns with your goals.
In 1989, John and Sarita Holzmann had only one unwritten goal: to give their children a quality education outside the traditional classroom. That one goal led them to homeschooling.
Over the ensuing years, the Holzmanns wrote more goals. . . to guide them in their homeschooling adventure and to guide us at Sonlight as we attempt to expand and improve upon what they developed for their own use. We've kept these goals in mind as we have developed — and as we continue to develop — Sonlight®.
Maybe you'll adopt some of our goals as your own. Maybe you'll deliberately reject some. Either way, you'll want to write down some homeschooling goals for you and your family
Here are our top goals. To:
1. Teach students to seek God's Kingdom above and beyond everything else.
We believe this is the primary goal Jesus set before all of us who claim to be His disciples. "Seek first His [God's] kingdom and His righteousness" (Matthew 6:33).
We want to keep that goal in front of us and our students
2. Create a learner's heart, enthusiasm and excitement for learning — a desire to discover.
What good does it do to fill children's minds with all manner of information if they never learn how to learn, or if they never acquire a heartfelt desire for education?
We want our kids to grow up with the same attitude and conviction Solomon had: "[Wisdom] is more profitable than silver and yields better returns than gold. She is more precious than rubies; nothing you desire can compare with her" (Proverbs 3:13-15).
3. Encourage children to honor God's "Great Commission" (Matthew 28:18-20) by acquiring an international perspective and a godly heart for the world.
God's plans are for all peoples. And we want never to forget what is foremost on God's heart. Thus we are unwilling to focus solely, or even primarily, on the West and western history.
What most kids can't imagine is that anyone lives differently than they do. Most have no idea that there is a big world around them filled with people who have completely different experiences from their own.
And so, we begin exposing students to world cultures and world history in Preschool and Kindergarten. And even when we study American history, we focus not only on the stuff of which standard histories are made — the political heroes, the battles and large social movements — we focus, too, on the smaller, more personal-scale social and cultural issues as well.
We also do what we can to help students understand history as it looks from the perspective of people who are outside the halls of power and who, for social or cultural reasons, just see things differently than we ourselves and "our own" people have always been taught to view them.
4. Inspire students to honor Christ boldly — in speech and conduct.
We believe that the Christian faith is not merely intended to grant us eternal personal comfort; it is meant to change the way we live and, through us, to alter the world around us.
That's why, from the earliest years, we include materials that help children memorize Scripture, understand what the Bible is all about, and understand how the legacy of God's people extends to the present day.
We want children to find true heroes — people whose lives they want to emulate.
We want them to read biographies that not only tell them about the good deeds that others have done and the wise habits these people have developed, but that help them see these people as they really were: people whom God used despite their shortcomings.
We want children to sense the excitement and challenge of following Jesus in big and little things — not only at home, at church, and in family relations, but also in the worlds of work and of cultural development. We want children, through their reading, to see, know, and understand — and be willing to make — the sacrifices that they may be called upon to make if they are to fulfill God's purposes in their lives.
5. Train children to become winsome and effective ambassadors for Christ.
Most curricula (especially Christian curricula) seem to focus entirely on "message" content — what we need to know and believe so that students will quickly recognize and reject (turn away from — or run away from) whatever is false.
Christians often justify this educational focus by referring to the U.S. Secret Service's method of preparing anti-counterfeit agents. New agents are made so familiar with honest-to-goodness $20, $50 and $100 bills that they are able to recognize counterfeit bills immediately.
We believe this analogy is good
Interestingly, Scripture uses more activistic language than what we might associate with anti-counterfeit agents. The Apostle Paul speaks of ambassadors and soldiers for Christ. And ambassadors and soldiers don't merely identify the enemy or identify what is alien so they might then turn or run away from it. No. They engage the enemy; they interact with whatever is not part of "their own."
And so, ambassadors must not only be intimately familiar with their authorized message. They must also know their audience. They must know what their audience thinks, believes, and values. They must know the places where their audience's mental, emotional and spiritual defenses are strong
Using the Biblical military analogy: soldiers for Christ must be taught not only to recognize who the enemy is (what is false); they must be taught to discover the peculiar strengths and weaknesses of the enemy, what strategies the enemy will use, and what strategies they may use against the enemy.
6. Teach students not only biblical content, but how to listen as well. Put another way: understand first and judge second.
Someone has said that God gave us two ears and one mouth and we ought to use them in approximately that ratio. Those of us who wish to be effective communicators for Christ should do two times as much listening as we do talking.
It makes sense. The act of listening communicates powerfully to another person that "I care." After all, who would you believe really cared for you and to whom would you listen: someone who listens intently to what you have to say before giving a gracious and thoughtful reply, or someone who launches into a prepared monologue designed to "set you straight"?
Sonlight® uses two vehicles to teach students to listen.
First, we have them listen while Mom or Dad reads.
Studies have shown, and we have seen it proven time and again: children whose parents read to them regularly and at length are far more capable of listening and understanding what they hear than are children whose parents read to them but little.
Sonlight® Read-Aloud Classics will entice you and your children to read together
Second, we have students look at different sides to an argument.
Many people — both children and adults — are afraid of what "the opposition" may say. Our minds become so filled with worry about our possible inability to reply appropriately that we never hear what the other person has to say.
And so most of us are far more comfortable to remain ignorant of other people's claims than to become familiar with what they have to say and respond appropriately.
Sonlight® refuses to bow to this fear or laziness.
7. Teach students, through experience, that God is faithful; they can listen to other perspectives without falling into sin or having their faith destroyed.
In other words, in the supportive environment of their parents' home — with the help of their parents — Sonlight® teaches students the tools, techniques, knowledge and skills of godly intellectual warfare.
We want students to be convinced, through experience, that there are legitimate answers to questions coming from "the other side." Not only so, but even when they don't happen to know the answers, they need not run in fear.
There is no need to fear because the truth — God's truth — will prevail. He who is in us truly is greater than he who is in the world (cf. 1 John 4:4). And He who is by our side really will give us the right words to say when the time comes (cf. Matthew 10:18-20). Students come to know this not just in their heads, as an article of faith, but in their hearts, through experience.
8. Inspire students, by example, to do thorough, competent research... to fulfill the work of true scholars.
Through the books we have chosen and through our instructor's guides, Sonlight Curriculum seeks to "walk its talk" and demonstrate true scholarship.
Some people may question the value of quality scholarship. We believe it has a direct and valuable impact on a person's ambassadorship. The person who has "done his homework" is in a far better position (than the one who has not) to communicate effectively and winsomely with a person who is coming from a very different perspective.
9. Create within our students a love for quality literature — books that will cause them to think deeply, feel passionately, and prepare themselves for action concerning significant ethical issues, both social and personal in nature.
We who continue to develop Sonlight® can't imagine a quicker, easier, more enjoyable way to gain wisdom and knowledge than to read great books. We believe quality literature, whether written by Christians or non-Christians, should cause us to search the Scriptures to find out how Jesus would respond in similar circumstances.
And as we seek these answers and think about these subjects, we prepare ourselves for the future when we will find ourselves very much involved in situations similar to those we've read about.
10. Raise "culturally literate" students.
As E.D. Hirsch, Jr., demonstrates in his bestselling work, Cultural Literacy, there is a certain basic set of background information all of us must know if we are to get along in a culture — let alone to influence that culture.
We must be aware of the key historical events, the significant persons, movements, groups and ideas that have shaped the culture.
Sonlight seeks to help our students move far beyond the basics. We want to raise world-changers: people who will make a difference — for good.
So we place a premium upon cultural literacy.
That's why you'll find so many famous books — some of which, especially in the older years, are quite un-Christian — in our curriculum.
We believe our children must be made aware of these books and their content so that they have a foundational base of knowledge and, more importantly, so that they will be prepared to respond to these cultural influences in a strong and Godly fashion.
Certainly, these aren't the only goals we have. But we feel they are by far the most important. Having read them, we hope you now know how well your goals and our goals align. And, even if our goals don't align, we hope we've given you a foundation from which you can begin to express and record your own educational goals for your children
1 Source: Originally found at http://www.warrior-scholar.com/inner%20circle/Library/Goals.html, but the page is no longer active. Back to Article
If you'd like to get more advice and information about the homeschooling process, please check out the following Sonlight Podcasts:
