Chapter 13: Establish a Strategy

After inspiring a child with an idea and building an alliance, then, establish a strategy for forming a new habit. Ask the child, “How can I help you?” Often they themselves will offer a great strategy. The adult’s job is to inform the student’s ignorance, and support the student in overcoming their weakness. Discipline is not control; it is formation, cultivation, and helping a child grow up to form healthy relationships. Ambleside teachers prayerfully identify two areas for each child’s growth, and then act with tact, watchfulness and persistence to form new habits.

Chapter 14: Building the Passion to Know

The true goal of education is to learn, not merely to win prizes or impress others. “Build the character; build the love for learning; build the passion to know; build the discipline to work well” – then the performance takes care of itself.  Ambleside’s curriculum includes a large number of subjects so that students can establish many different relationships. We are shaped by relationships and the ideas that stand behind those relationships. Healthy lives come from hearts and minds being shaped by healthy relationships and healthy ideas.

Chapter 15:  Cultivating Relationships with Learning

In many school environments children choose areas to study which most interest them. But children should be put in contact with a wide curriculum, a rich and varied feast, their “Great Inheritance” of wide relationships with this world. Too often people grow only in areas that already interest them; yet, we’ve seen real joy and real delight at Ambleside as students learn from a varied array of subjects. We must be very intentional and careful about the dynamics between the teacher, the ‘taught’ and the text, for only then will a life-giving education result. Ideas have the power to shape our hearts and minds.