The story above may look similar to the frustration many parents experience as they try to get the doorways of understanding to open up for their child.

After digging through piles of research on homeschooling and curriculum options and juggling stacks of highly recommended materials purchased online or at a book fair or convention, still you may feel like you're fumbling as you try to help your students get a grasp on one or more subjects.

A child's way of thinking can be like a locked door.

As teachers, our job is to unlock the doors.

Could it be that we sometimes try very hard but use the wrong keys?

Proverbs tells us to train up a child "in the way he should go", and that's most parents' heartfelt intention. It makes a tremendous difference, however, which word we emphasize in that sentence. Are we supposed to train up our child in the way he SHOULD go? Or do we train up each child in the way HE should go?

In other words, must we diligently apply to all children a standardized list of rules and objectives--whatever educational theory or methodology happens to be currently popular--which dictates what they should learn and how they should learn it? This interpretation seems to imply that there is one ideal key that fits all locks, and if the door doesn't open, something is wrong with the lock or the door. I'm sure my personal prejudices are showing, but with children--as with locked doors--there's no such thing as one-size-fits-all. We don't hand out shoes or pants that way, and the results would be ridiculously unsatisfactory if we tried.

"One-size-fits-all" really doesn't fit anybody very well.

May I submit that a standardized, one-size-fits-all education may not fit most children very well either?

I'd suggest that a better interpretation of the verse in Proverbs encourages us to carefully and lovingly study each child's unique design so that we can train them in the ways they learn best for the work they were created to do.

If we can agree that unique, individualized education is ideal, the question becomes, "How do we actually do that?"

In this short course you'll learn how to observe and analyze the ways your child learns best. Then you'll learn ideas for adapting your teaching style and materials to the way your child learns.