Q&A: Educating from Birth

by Crystal Paine

Where did you hear about the concept of starting "schooling" with children so young? I am very interested to hear more as it sounds like something I would like to consider doing with my babies. - Natalie

I don't really recall hearing the concept of educating children from birth from any particular place it is just something I have always felt I would do whenever I had children. I used to teach violin lessons and from that I learned that young students usually learned best. Why? Well, my theory was that they had little to cloud their brain and so they were much more able to focus. Yes, it does require more repetition and patience to teach younger students, but once they learn something, they usually have it learned for life.

When my youngest brother was first born (Zachary is now six), Mom wanted to have us all be involved in his life and education. So, almost from his birth, she had scheduled times where we were to teach him things. One of us read to him, one of us taught him sign language, one of us sang with him, and so on (I have six siblings ages 26 to 6 in case you are wondering). From getting to experience him learning things from birth firsthand, I began to realize that every young child has great potential in what they can learn which is often overlooked. It is so rewarding to have some of the first words out of a child's mouth be Bible verses!

Jesse and I have been reading Ten P's in a Pod and we have been so inspired (I HIGHLY recommend this book! It is a wonderful family read-aloud). This book is the story of the Pent family-- a family of ten who travelled the country together preaching and sharing Christ with others. One thing that they practiced daily was to read the Bible for 30 minutes after every meal. Each family member, who could read, would read 2 chapters each. After a few years of this, many of them knew books of the Bible by heart, without even trying to memorize them.

This book is packed full of great stories, encouragement, and challenge, but two things which really stood out to me were:

1) Mr. Pent required all family members to be present at all family Bible readings. Even the infants were present. If they were asleep, he would have them woken up so that they could hear God's Word read.

2) One thing which is reiterated again and again throughout the book is that the years between zero to three are the most formative years in a person's life.

Jesse is often remarking about how defunct the public education system is. Not only is it unconstitional and based upon a Darwinian model of peer segregation (I won't get onto my soapbox on the public education system in this post... maybe later!!), but they completely miss the boat in making children wait until they are passed the most formative years of their life to begin teaching them "skills" and "knowledge." Whoever came up with the idea that we must make a child wait until they are five to start kindergarten? Why not educate from birth?

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