Every child has a right of entry to several fields of knowledge.
Every [neurotypical] child has an appetite for such knowledge.
This appetite or desire for knowledge is a sufficient stimulus for schoolwork, if the knowledge be fitly given.- Charlotte Mason
It’s appropriate to say that merely following a child’s interests can be limiting if a child does not have the privilege of several fields of knowledge. It’s also fitting to state that if the motivation for learning is an external stimulus such as accolades, praise or stickers, we will need to keep increasing the stakes as our children grow.
If you want to obliterate your child’s desire for knowledge, do the following:
Give all that diluted knowledge in the form of long oral lessons without giving the child the chance to do anything with the knowledge. In other words, the cycle is to sermonise, memorise and test.
Give those lectures, a.k.a. bore them to death.
Read condensed material instead of the actual book to your children.
What do we do instead? We educate our children with books and things.
Things include :
Gross motor activities like swimming, walking, climbing, brachiating
Fine Motor skill activities like carving, leatherwork, knitting, bracelet making.
Interaction with nature - birds, flowers, trees, streams, stones
Exposure to art in painting, sculptures, architecture
Scientific apparatus - Science kits, STEM toys, measurement tools
Before you purchase a toy, it’s helpful to look at the definition mentioned above of ‘things’ to determine if you need that toy or not.
Our endeavour should be to provide living books on every subject in a pretty comprehensive curriculum such that our little scholars can study on their own. However, children between six and eight must have their books read to them for the most part.