Brief notes from and the Skylark from chs 1 and 2

Quotes I want to remember; I will be writing on this soon

Two of our most important homeschooling lessons:
we weren't going to be able to do everything ourselves, and hence would have to learn how to find other resources
we were going to be experimental in approach rather than be governed by someone else's narrow conception of “age-appropriateness”.
Our kids taught us that our task is to seek avenues for whatever inward leadings they exhibit to blossom, and to find ways for our children to become who they already are, or were meant to be.

What I aspire to be is the strongest possible advocate for my children and for ensuring their learning needs are met in the best possible fashion.

The end I envision for my children's education is not the mastery of subject matter.  It is perhaps here where, more than anywhere else, we part company with the practice of public education.  For the end we envision lies not in the amassing of facts or concepts, which, in itself, has little more intrinsic value than the accumulation of shoes, baseball cars, or sports cars, but in the responsible exercise of freedom – the freedom to learn, to create, to grow, to be – unfettered by prejudice, their own or that of others, unhampered to the highest degree possible by others' expectations and their own preconceptions, fears, and self-doubts, uninhibited by dependencies not freely chosen.
Why are these mutually exclusive?