reclaiming learning

WARNING LABEL: THIS MATERIAL WILL BE OFFENSIVE TO THE STATUS QUO. READ AT YOUR OWN RISK!

This post is part of our series Primer to Living the Dream Life

primer to living the dream life

 

Reclaiming Learning

We did not go back-to-school shopping. Our kids did not get new clothes, a bevy of supplies, or the night-before jitters. That’s because we did not declare a “start” to the school year this week. And that’s because we did not declare an “end” to the school year in June.

We have decided to embrace a lifestyle of learning in our household.

We homeschool.

For the record, we did not choose it.

It chose us.

As you may know by now, we’ve been called to live (and share forward) an integrated life of business, household, farm, ministry, and love.

We live life in a blender where the lines between business and home are intentionally blurred.

We don’t happen to believe that – in the beginning – there existed all the hard, black and white lines and dichotomies and boundaries between the various areas of life as we now experience in today’s society.

Even when our boys were babies, Trevor and I would catch sight of the yellow bus picking up and dropping off pupils on our farm road. We didn’t speak of it till recent years, but both of us had a lump in our throat about it as we imagined forward.

We saw how exponentially fast our little strong seed are growing into saplings and felt a hard-wired inclination to water and fertilize according to our kind.

As our boys approached school age, we felt a drawing to keep them home.

But we resisted.

It would really be difficult with a business, I reasoned. How would I integrate it all?

It would be easier to send them off and reclaim his freedom, Trevor felt. Finally, he could get some stuff done.

We wouldn’t know what to do, or how to do it; we were ill-equipped, we were cautioned.

And so we stuffed the inclination of our hearts deep inside.

We didn’t think that ignoring it was selfish. We were advised that ignoring it was practical.

And then one day, we got wrecked. Our friend sent us a CD on statistics and outcomes of government-educated children. Our breathing got terse. We couldn’t look each other in the eye. We knew we had crossed over a line and there was nothing to go back to. We heard very clearly in our spirit and soul what needed to be done.

Quite frankly, we were freaked out and moved ahead anyway.

And it wasn’t until we stepped into this journey and put the rubber to the road that we have received any measure of consolation. It wasn’t until we ACTIVATED the instruction in our heart that the answers began to come.

As we beheld ourselves with Original eyes, we discovered our faculty. We realized that everything I am not gifted in, Trevor is. And everything he is not gifted in, I am. From language to communication to math to fine arts, we had it covered. We saw the completion between ourselves as the intended teachers for our children.

learning writingAs we beheld our property here at Dream Acres we discovered our own school.

  • We stumbled upon the fact that Restoring Order headquarters was in fact our business school right under our own roof. A place where leaders are already being deployed into people’s lives, homes, and businesses. Just like our boys will be – sent into this world as solutions and order-restorers in the areas of their own unique gifting.

 

  • We realized that we already had “shop class”. Trevor’s shop is a birthing table for creativity, replete with witty inventions of wood, plastic, metal, and energy. Our boys will be equipped as CREATORS who can innovate, build, and fix. Their “material” will be stuff, people, organizations, and communities.

 

  • Learning hospitalityWe began to understand that the conference room and barn where hundreds are hosted, trained, and healed in their spaces & souls is a hospitality and training facility. Our boys will learn to teach, explain, lead, host, and love people. (At our last organizing event, our 6 year old – unprompted – met every guest at their car with “Welcome to Dream Acres, I’m Nash. Can I help you with your things?”)

 

  • Learning through playWe saw with fresh eyes the pirate ship and the “dugout” as veritable imagination stations, preparing to bring unabashed, unlimited thinking into a world where boxed-in pupils and employees are discouraged from bringing themselves to their work.

 

  • (Now that I’ve started this list I realize how sprawling it would be if I finished it. There’s archery, homekeeping, homesteading, writing, music, organizing, research, electronics, athletics, and every form of art in our home. I’m honestly just too overwhelmed with tears to share with you all the things we’ve discovered that we already possess that is a rich learning environment for our boys.)

   
We beheld Dream Acres – our family homestead and headquarters of Restoring Order – was always intended to be AN EQUIPPING CENTER. And what better and more rounded place to educate tomorrow’s leaders? 

Learning art at homeschool

 

I can’t even begin to share with you the whole story of how our choice to educate our children has begun or developed, and all of our reasons and observations and confirmations along the way.

I am not trying to convince anyone that our way is the best way. But it is the best way for us. It is the only way for us.

And it is part of our assignment to help everyday folks take back that which they’ve given away– their households, their work, their souls, their health, and their wealth.

Reclaiming learning and figuring out what that looks like by DOING IT has become part of our Dream Life.

I now perceive that this LONG post shall only be a beginning to an unfolding story in our lives that we want to share with you (even if the hate mail comes). I did not expect to be so choked up sharing this revelation and journey with you. I dearly hope that somehow, in reading our story, you will be inspired to step into that which you know you need to dothe instruction to your heart.

As you agree with whatever you have been called to do, I cannot guarantee you anything but the peace that comes with knowing you are congruent with truth.

In fact, as you step off the cliff of everything you know, you are entering the greatest adventure of all – where TRUE LIFE really begins – LEARNING WHAT YOU DON’T KNOW.

We don’t claim to have authority in homeschooling yet, only that which comes through obedience to the instruction to our souls.

Yet, our offspring are our references, so if you really doubt (or even scorn) our whole-hearted, integrated approach to life and learning, that’s ok. Just get to know Nash and Brock and you will have more answers than this grown-up-in-training.

Yours in life, learning, and love,

Vicki Norris

Thanks for reading along with our Primer to Living the Dream Life series.
Read “Living Your Dream Life Starts With a Dream

Read “Getting Out of Balance
Read “The Key That Unlocks the Dream Life” 

 

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