Our kids can’t know everything. As a homeschooling mother, this concept really stresses me out. I remember when my oldest was leaving the grammar years and entering into the next phase of learning, I was planning out our school year, and I panicked. I was bombarded with an overwhelming list of books that I wanted her to read, and I knew there weren’t enough hours in the day for her to read them all.

I was distraught trying to organize in my mind how to make sure she would graduate with knowledge of all of the countries, capitals, states, bodies of water, mountain ranges, world wars, major battle locations, mathematical formulas, Latin grammar, I could go on and on.

In one of my frantic phone calls to a homeschooling friend, she imparted this wisdom that has relieved all of this anxiety: “Mastery is not regurgitation”.

I had unconsciously adopted the public school mentality that the measure of learning that my child achieves will be scored by a test proving that she knows what year Columbus set sail. But mastery is not regurgitation. Thankfully. Our children are not parrots, and their learning is not limited to the four corners of their high school years. If we have done well, our children will have a love for learning, and they will know how to learn. This will take them their whole lives. This is the beauty, and the relief of classical education.

It is important that they learn their multiplication tables, and important times in history, but don’t limit our children to “getting through” learning. Feed their God-given curiosity, and they will by His grace, become life-long learners.