BenCrowder.net

Most children come to the world with an inborn drive to learn, a fascination with the texture of leaves and the pretty colors on butterfly wings and the smell of melted plastic and everything else in this new and delightfully intriguing place. Curiosity burns like a fire within them, constantly pressing them on to learn more about the world around them and have fun in the process. Sadly, however, this love of learning is often extinguished by the time a child reaches maturity. But does it have to be that way?

When I was young, my parents gave me the freedom to explore my interests. If I wanted to pull apart my watch and try to build something else with the gears and springs, I could. If I wanted to go to the library and check out a hundred books on electronics and lasers in the hope of making a lightsaber, I could. (The project was a failure, I might add.) When I became interested in painting, we bought an inexpensive set of paints and I was allowed to make a mess. When I began to take an interest in computers, my parents let me tinker around, even when it meant accidentally frying the hard drive. When I was older and wanted desperately to be a writer, they encouraged me (and were pleasantly surprised when I excitedly showed them my first article in an international computer magazine).

This freedom kept my love of learning alive. Instead of being stifled by too many restraints, my curiosity was able to thrive, making education a fun and enjoyable experience. (There were restraints, of course, but they weren’t so restrictive that they crushed my curiosity.) If I had not been homeschooled, I would not have had that level of freedom, nor would I have had as much time.

Time is very important. In this hectic modern world where we rush about from one thing to the next, it is all too easy to forget the things that really matter. Because I was home all day, my mother could spend hours reading to me, helping with experiments, teaching me, and giving me the quality time and nurturing that every child needs. I was also able to focus on the things that really interested me — for example, I became quite interested in computers when I was eight years old, and because I could spend several hours a day programming and tinkering around with the hardware, I quickly gained a great deal of experience and was able to get a job at $10/hour when I was thirteen years old.

Another important factor in my education was (and is) reading. My mother took us to the library at least once a week when I was younger and we would come home with a wagonful of books. I looked forward to our library visits even more than I looked forward to dessert. By reading to us every day, my mother instilled in me and my siblings a passionate love of books and learning that remains to this day. Because I had read so many books as a child, when I took the ACT in preparation for college, I was very familiar with the feel of the English language and I intuitively knew what the right answers were, without even having to think about it (half of the test is on English skills and reading comprehension). In the course of my reading I’d also come across much math and science (you have to know elementary physics if you want to build a lightsaber), which helped with the remaining half of the ACT.

With the freedom to learn, the time to do it, and a passion for books, my love of learning has burned brightly throughout my life and continues to make learning a joy.