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 | The Missing Piece |
Franklin's Philosophy of Life
in His Own Words
312 Pages
What Character Trait is Missing
in Your Homeschool Curriculum?
Attention All Homeschoolers!
So what is the missing character trait?
Simply stated, its the ability to think rightly!!!
Benjamin Franklin explains,
". . .as the happiness or real good of man consists in right action and right action cannot be produced without right opinion, it behooves us above all things in this world to take care that our opinions of things be according to the nature of things. The foundation of all virtue and happiness is thinking rightly."
Benjamin Franklin's The Art of Virtue, pp- 29-30
If you're concerned about the choices your children are making or will have to make in the future, you have good reason. They are being constantly bombarded with a barrage of mixed messages requiring them daily to make choices with serious consequences, choices they are often unprepared to make. The risks to youth have never been greater.
Perhaps this is the reason you homeschool. Unfortunately, even homeschoolers are in competition with a thousand other voices all vying for their children's attention, many of which are very powerful and compelling even to very good kids. Ask me how I know!
The Pied Piper is alive and well. And as parents we can't afford to ignore his call. You cannot always be with your children to protect them. You must somehow find a way to help your children to develop a protective shield that will enable them to distinguish between good ideas and bad ideas. That protective shield is the ability to think rightly.
The ability to think rightly is highly dependent on possessing a well developed set of emotional, social and thinking skills—lifeskills that empower them make sound choices in environments of commotion, confusion and contradiction. But where will they learn these skills?
These skills are not to be found in any homeschool curriculum I am aware of. Nor are they taught in public or private schools. And it is painfully obvious they are not a formal part of any college or university program.
This is not an indictment of any curriculum provider or any educational program. Most, if not all, do very well what they were designed to do. But what they have been designed to do is impart information, not process information. True, some programs teach creative thinking or critical thinking, but logic does not always play an important role in making choices and creativity can be used justify and execute harmful as well as helpful actions.
To understand this better, check out our pages dealing with lifeskills, homeschool curriculum and the cardinal character trait.
Possession of this trait supercedes all other qualities of character because none are adequate with it, and all are dependent on it. It is the key to intelligent action, without which intelligent people do not always act intelligently.
To learn more about the emotional, social and thinking skills essential for responsible choice making I invite you to browse this site and enter your name and email address in the box to the right of this page to receive free what I consider to be some of the most important lessons any child can ever learn.
To learn more about ChoiceSkills click on About-ChoiceSkills.
The imaginative activities and examples make the teaching fun and that's when teachers and students get excited.
Media Specialist
Eden Prairie, MN
. . .by far the most creative social skills program I have ever reviewed.
School Social Worker
Terre Haute, IN
Extremely appropriate for my students. Skills they are lacking and need desparately. They stayed involved and were able to participate.
Elementary Teacher
Lindon, UT
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