The Oscar winner for Best Original Song went to a guy who thanked his mother for letting him quit soccer to be in a musical. He dedicated his win to all the kids who sing in the rain and to all the moms who let them.
I’ve written before about passion and how EP frees my kids up to spend time on their passions. That’s what has been important to me, giving my kids a good foundation and then letting them build on it, their own way.
I know it’s hard to let your kids play and explore and create and have fun when you hear about how “rigorous” this and that curriculum or program is. “Rigorous” seems to be a big buzzword in homeschool circles these days. I’d rather have joy and peace than rigor in my homeschool day.
My oldest is going off to college this fall. She’s my first “proof of concept.” She has always done school the “easy” way. School before Easy Peasy was even easier for us. Easy Peasy was actually a longer, more involved school day than what we did before. My daughter is an EP kid; she was using it before anyone outside of our family knew it existed.
My kids did all the EP lessons when they were younger, but as I’ve gotten kids into high school, I’ve let them take more of a lead on their direction. I let my daughter spend as much time on her art as she liked. As she got really focused on art, I didn’t stress over her math and science that she didn’t like. We just moved along in math at her own pace. I wanted her to learn, not just get through. For two years of high school science I let her choose her subject. She did anatomy one year and spent the year drawing muscles and bones and labeling them. The next year she studied light. She researched it and wrote a big paper on it. Light was something she was focused on in her artwork that year. She likes history and English, so she wanted to continue with the regular EP courses in those subjects through high school.
So what was the outcome? She won a full scholarship to her only-choice school. She believed she knew where she should go to school; I trusted her and let her only apply there.
It can be hard when your child wants to go into the arts or some other field where you know jobs might be hard to come by. It can be tempting to worry and to want them to have all that rigorous education when they really just want to create. If your child is passionate and puts in the time and hard work, then they can get good enough to be one of those ones who get to make a living doing what they love. That Oscar winner used to be just a boy singing in the rain.
My next oldest is starting a video game design company. He’s hoping to launch the alpha version of his first big game this year, as a freshman. He got his first unsolicited job offer at thirteen. I can already see that he can be successful at his passion, what he pours his spare time into.
Is Easy Peasy the key to every child’s future? Of course not. There is a key, though. It’s called the grace of God. He gave my kids their talents and personalities that drove them to the things they love to do. He provided free art lessons for my daughter after I was fussing to Him in prayer about how I couldn’t help her move forward with her art. He inspired the Easy Peasy way of school that gave my kids a great foundation and the hours to invest in their work. He matched my daughter up with a school that not only accepts her but appreciates her.
So when I look at my eleven year old reading or making music and his younger brothers dancing and creating imaginative games, I try to relax. God’s got a plan for their future and it’s a good one.
And a note: EP has high quality courses. There are many high school courses that are based on AP courses. There are courses that use lectures and materials from universities. I’m not saying that EP lacks in “rigor.” I’m saying I’m against rigor for rigor’s sake. There was no need for my daughter to tackle an AP physics course just so I could feel I was giving her a rigorous education. I hope you can see the difference. And, of course, I’m not saying that your kids or all my kids are going to get full scholarships. I’m just saying that I can trust it’s going to all work out okay. I’m putting my faith in God, not in my curriculum, not in rigorous academic standards, not in anything else.
Here’s the article on the same theme that I wrote for the main site.