Having completely read through Wisdom's Way of learning once and reread various sections, I still cannot say that I have digested it all. This book makes other how-to homeschool books seem like fluff. That is not meant to disparage those other books, all of which fill needs within the homeschool community. Wisdom's Way of Learning is a call beyond homeschooling to something richer and deeper. When we begin homeschooling we put on a new lifestyle. Wisdom's Way of Learning presents a lifestyle beyond homeschooling, a lifestyle of learning.

You might think that you have a "lifestyle of learning" already in your home. After all, you don't limit moments of learning to times spent "doing" school. You learn all the time. As Howshall explains, a "lifestyle of learning" is not about being open to educational opportunities every moment of the day. A lifestyle of learning begins with a relationship with the Lord. She explains that many people build their concepts of how to live and learn from those they respect and not from the Lord. Rather than spend time seeking God through prayer and the Word, they accept what others have determined to be the right way to walk in Christ. "She follows what others have told her is truth, seemingly forgetful of the fact that the Holy Spirit lives within her." She calls this "exchanging the glory for an image." Howshall digs to the root of many of our habits and ideas exposing our need to find security in other people's good opinions.

Yes, it can hurt to read this book, but Howshall does not leave us standing stripped of all we knew with no direction to proceed. She begins the book relating her own journey from Egypt through the wilderness to the promised land. Howshall presents the stages of thought and understanding she went through to arrive at her lifestyle of learning. She offers tools for each of us to make that same journey ourselves...

As she describes the tools for developing and proceeding with a lifestyle of learning, two words are use repeatedly to describe the tools and the process, simple and natural. How does one begin an extended study of learning and finding one's own life purpose and still manage to homeschool the kids? Howshall explains how using these simple and natural tools (with the emphasis on the process of learning rather than the product of learning) will allow your children to begin to develop their own lifestyle of learning. Eventually this will lead to their own "Unit of Life" season where they learn within the context of a specific life purpose and ultimately develop mastery in a field of interest for which they have a passion. As you develop your own lifestyle of learning, your children will develop theirs.

I highly recommend this book for anyone who feels that they haven't quite arrived yet in their homeschooling. If filling squares and following someone else's ideas about homeschooling leave you feeling dissatisfied hoping something better must exist, you should read this book. It's not merely another way of doing things to add to or replace your current methods. It's a call to change your life by being conformed to Christ and changing your lifestyle by conforming it to God's specific will for you.

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Excerpted from "The Eclectic Homeschooler" and used with permission from (and gratitude toward) Bev Krueger, editor of "The Eclectic Homeschooler" magazine for homeschoolers; sample issue is $4 which you can obtain by writing to: Eclectic Homeschool, P.O. Box 736, Bellevue, NE 68005-0736. Her email address is Clayvessel@aol.com ... To get to her website, click on the rose: 

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