Building a Library
Categories: Léo’s Insights 2024-2025
Last week I told the story of the late-blooming boy who demonstrated no interest in learning academic subjects, particularly reading, until much older than the “industry standard” of reading by age six. Once puberty hit and this young fellow began reading, he quickly excelled and became a power reader.
His dad was a successful investment specialist. He had an agreement with his son that he would purchase any book the son wanted (parental reason prevailing), on condition that it would be read cover to cover. The dad then purchased a bookcase that would only house books after they had been fully read and the contents discussed with dad to ensure the son was understanding what he was reading.
When I visited the family after they had moved to a more opulent house, I was taken to the boy’s room where two outstanding things were observed. First was the grandeur of the room itself. It was more than one would expect of a bedroom! The second thing was the number of books, covering a plethora of subjects, on the multitude of bookshelves accumulated over the last four years.
Considering this young fellow had only started reading four years earlier, it was simply amazing how many books he had read in that short time. I can guarantee there is no way a public school student could have read that many books covering such a broad range of topics, even if they had started at the expected age of six.
This young man had extensive knowledge of many things, well beyond his age, and he had learned it without any curriculum, program or test. This was unschooling at its best.
Unschooling is not unlearning. It is simply not schooling, which allowed this fellow to play as a child and seriously learn what interested him as a young man.
Moral? Work with your child. Don’t try to create something of him/her. God already did that. Provide learning opportunities for your child in keeping with his/her gifts, talents and interests. Don’t waste time meeting meaningless and unmeasurable standards imposed by a disconnected education system.
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