When Kim was in the fourth grade, she developed an interest in Shakespeare. I am not sure where the interest came from, since she was so young, but she wanted to read Shakespeare. I remember being at the library with her, trying to tell her that she might not understand so advanced a book. She was determined to read Romeo and Juliet. I was wrong. She read it over and over. If she didn't understand something, she would ask. By the time she got into high school, and Shakespeare was introduced, Kim breezed through while her friends were buying Spark Notes and didn't understand.
After Kim's obsession with Shakespeare, she went though her Cleopatra phase. She read everything she could find on Cleopatra. She watched the old movies. She was reading advanced material in the sixth grade about Egyptian and Roman culture. Once again, by the time this was studied in high school, Kim was an expert. She already had picked up the information when she was young because she had been interested in it.
Kim was an average student in public school. She did well in some areas when she was interested. If she wasn't, she slid by, putting forth minimal effort to pass. No other attempt to motivate her worked. She was a bright girl that did what she had to do on what she needed, but really went all out when she was interested.
I realized that what Kim did with her interests is how most people learn. If I want to understand something, I research all that I can on what I am interested in. I study, and it doesn't feel like work because I am interested in the subject. Different teachers might inspire a student to do better in a subject for awhile in public school, but most of the time it was short lived.
A natural interest in a subject can often bring a depth to a study that can't be compared or beaten in any other learning environment. Exposure to many different subjects can spark these interests. Sometimes these sparks come from a book we are reading, or a movie we see.
Like with Kim, these interests can lead to amazing levels of education. Following an interest can lead a student to more advanced levels of knowledge... with long-term retention. I let Kim follow her interests for the most part, even when I thought the material was way too advanced for her. I feel that, in some respects, my oldest was limited by the type of education she received. She was limited in the amount of time she could spend on her own interests because she had to follow the traditional route.
All of this makes me grateful that, with homeschooling, we have the time to focus on individual interests. Our schooling part of the day only takes a few hours. The rest of the day my daughters have the time to play, to read, to have time on their own.
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