Friday, March 25, 2011

Yet Another Homeschool *Genius*

This one's an artist:


Akiane Kramarik is a young prodigy from Sandpoint, Idaho, who has been drawing and painting lifelike artwork since she was 4. Akiane (pronounced ah-KEE-ah-nah) says she first met God when she was 3. And now she's hoping to use her amazing gift to help feed needy children around the world.

When young Akiane's special gift was discovered, not much time passed before the humble 10-year-old was featured on Oprah, CNN, and other national media programs. Akiane began working in pastels when she was 5, and completed her first painting at 7. The self-portrait she painted sold for $10,000.

"It wasn't just art that was happening. Simultaneous with art was a spiritual awakening," says Akiane's mother, Forelli Kramarik. "It all began to happen when she started to share her dreams and visions. "Prior to that time, Forelli had been raised as an unbeliever, in an atheistic family from Lithuania. "And my husband was a former Catholic and did not share in the family beliefs. We didn't pray together, there was no discussion about God, and we didn't go to church. Then all of a sudden, Akiane was starting to talk about God."

Forelli's young daughter was homeschooled, she had no babysitters, and the family watched no television."We were with the kids all the time, and so these words from Akiane about God didn't come from the outside—we knew that. But there suddenly were intense conversations about God's love, His place [in our lives], and she would describe everything in detail."
Did y'all catch that?

HOMESCHOOLED, NO BABYSITTERS, and NO COLOR TV - just like I've been preaching for quite some time.

In order to reach anywhere near their human potential, children need to be around complete-sentence-wielding, working adults (not other juveniles!), they need solitude, and they need the brain exercise that naturally occurs from the absence of passive media consumption.

As my wife and I marvel at our off-the-charts homeschooled Prince occasionally one of us, though usually my wife, suggests that perhaps he's just a *genius*.

BUT I keep reminding her, and others, that there is no doubt that he's mostly a *product* of deliberate work and a manufactured environment.

See also:

Homeschooling - Enabling Concentrated Study

Off-The-Chart-Homeschooling.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

i am sure i will see prince in some major news(good ones) ... doing 8th class math at 6 years age is not "normal"

CaptiousNut said...

Yeah but I am not really pushing math much any more - just a little bit of new stuff each day.

If he himself really became obsessed with math (or chess) I'd be beyond ecstatic, of course.

But most likely he'll develop his own passions. I've long resigned myself to this inevitability and am excited to see what paths he ends up taking.

My daughter seems to be cooling on her math progress despite starting faster than her brother. Now, after much contemplation, I'm wondering how important, how much I should *force* on her. After all, there are numerous other important fields out there. Ideally I should be more focused on raising charitable, humble, moral children than *achievers*. But admittedly I'm deficient in this capacity.

Anonymous said...

math has other side effects...logical/analytical thinking comes to mind. Any effort spent on math, i think, is worthwile - even if they dont end up using it in their future chosen-passion.