"The Home is a School" (Entry #01)

by Brian G. Daigle

​Parents are given one of the most unique opportunities on the planet. They get to form a child. They get to form a child in ways that can never be undone. And in so doing, they set a trajectory for the child, training and forming and shaping the child's faculties and competencies at the deepest levels, giving them a vocabulary by which they understand themselves and the world, and forming in them intellectual and spiritual architecture which will inhabit the child for the rest of their lives.

But we have heard before that children don't come with a manual. And this is true. But parents do come with experiences by which to become the best parents possible. One of those key experiences is having attended some kind of schooling, and now having to choose a school for their child. And no matter what the parents' own schooling was like, and no matter the school they choose for the child, one of the most important analogies by which a parent can understand their job is that the home is a school. And this means that all the many platforms, ingredients, "assignments," subjects, teaching opportunities, etc. that are available to a school are not only available to the home, they are deeply and uniquely potent in the home.

In the coming months I will be posting a series of short entries on "The Home is a School" where I will share some of the greatest wisdom and expertise I've seen in great schools, in great teachers, and how that same perspective and same methods can build better parents. I will also share how great parents avoid some of the worst teaching mistakes I've seen. Parents are called to be teachers, in the most profound ways; they will be teachers, the primary educators of their child. And it is important that the best tools and techniques in history's best educational models are applied to the home. Welcome to "The Home is a School."