Latest / Homeschool Insights - Biblical Home Education Inspiration in Under 10 Minutes! / Stories Equip Kids Better Than Lectures Ever Will - S.D. Smith
Transcript
- speaker-0: You know, I've been to Mount Doom. I went with Sam and Frodo. I felt it. I felt sorrow and fear and worry and ⁓ and joy and exultation and I mean my heart change, you know, beat faster. And so these are experiences. If you have those as a kid, being read to or or reading yourself, it shapes you. speaker-1: You're saying we expose kids to hard things through characters and their storylines in books. And you use the word because we want to equip them. Can you talk a little bit more into what you mean by equipping through reading literature? speaker-0: Yeah, I think you you get equip you get equipment along the way, right? You you gather up stuff, whether that's physical, literal you do. We do tend to accumulate things, but we accumulate virtues, we accumulate habits, we accumulate ⁓ attitudes, dispositions, affections as we go along the way. So that's mostly what I think about. Like when I think about what the the effect of good stories on my own life, like reading The Lord of the Rings. I I love I never I'd I I've read I love theology. I love the Bible. I do not like it when artists or authors are kind of like, ⁓ I don't really care about theology. and I really just care about stories. I mean, that is the Bible is this this greatest story, and it's i i and ⁓ particularly, I mean, it's just story over after story after story, including four different accounts of Jesus in the g in the gospels, ⁓ very highly concerned with stories. But I I I think it's it's really powerful what when I when I read The Lord of the Rings, it was really powerful for me, maybe more so than any other book of like theology or Christian living or other than the Bible, because it made me love what I was finding in the Bible. And it it moved my heart in a way with longing. And and I think that the the the powerful work that was just done in me as a young person reading those books is hard to replicate with like. any amount of sort of I don't know like ⁓ direct didactic sort of teaching. ⁓ certainly definitely not from a story that was trying to do that to me. It's this sort of like this these ⁓ Tolkien t called it like he had a sort of a healthy distrust of allegory, but he loved application. He talked about application, how much of it is applicable in our lives. So I think you these stories can kind of give us equipment because you you are really experiencing them. I've been I've been reading through ⁓ David s story in first and second Samuel. And there's just a I mean, you go on those journeys with him. It's an incredible story to begin with, and a true story. And it's when you you yeah, it captures you in more than just information. You don't just get like, ⁓ technically, ⁓ it's good, it's smart to obey God, and it's bad to do the wrong thing. It's wrong to lie. You shouldn't kill people. You should do this. You should confess like there's a lot of like lessons you can draw out, but You don't just it's not reducible to just ⁓ facts, even truthful facts. What it happens is that you ⁓ stories invite us to inhabit these stories. So even in that story, I wasn't even thinking about this, but but Nathan, the prophet, comes to David and tells him a story about w what he's doing, you know, what he the what he the sin that he's committing. And and David feels it. He feels anger and he says, Who is this? You know, I'm gonna I'm gonna deal with this person. And Nathan says, you, it's you, you're the man. And he just, it's so powerful to hear a story. And ⁓ and so I I think that the power of the the equipping that happens along the way is that I think you add virtues and you add experiences. You know, I've been to Mount Doom. I went with Sam and Frodo. You know, I I had a feeling, I had an intellectual experience of like tracking along with him, but I felt it. I felt sorrow and fear and worry and ⁓ and joy and exultation and i mean my heart change you know beat faster and so these are experiences if you have those as a kid being read to or or reading yourself in these excellent virtuous you know profound books it shapes you like you you and it again if you read aloud together then you're going on that journey together and you can talk about remember when we went it almost like I don't know if you can remember like I remember where I was Or you're a long family road trip and mom read us this book and we went, we were like driving to, you know, Minnesota, but we actually were going also to Mount Doom. Or, you know, you can have those kinds of experience. And I think that there's there's just nothing like it, it's nothing sticky like that that just sticks to us. I think it's just a profound opportunity and a a challenge. ⁓ because I mean as a friend, ⁓ Indy Wilson said that that ⁓ stories are like catechisms for our bones. And I just I I believe that. I think that's so true. And it's as that makes them dangerous, really. Yeah. And it can be dangerous in a kind of a good way or a bad way. speaker-2: This episode of Homeschool Insights is brought to you by Liberty HealthShare. Choosing to homeschool is about making intentional decisions for your family. Liberty HealthShare is another way families across the country are choosing a different path, one that offers a community-centered approach to health care cost sharing that can help you keep more of your hard-earned dollars while getting the medical care your family needs. Learn more at LibertyHealthShare.org. That's LibertyHealthShare.org.