Home lessons important, too

Matt Pearl

As a father of a pair of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles enthusiasts, I can tell you something for a certainty:

We don’t always learn things the right way; sometimes we learn the right things the wrong way.

My boys know the names of four major renaissance artists — four and only four: Leonardo, Michelangelo, Raphael and Donatello.

They know them the same way many of you born after 1975 might — by hearing their names repeated over-and-over on the one American cartoon that just won’t go away.

And you know what? It’s fine with me.

We learn the things we need to know in this life, and we learn them in all sorts of different ways.

The most important part of the experience is that we continue learning.

For how long? For a lifetime.

I attended a local kindergarten graduation ceremony Thursday, and the teachers of the young grade- school grads encouraged the youngsters never to stop learning. Wise words from this pair of respected educators.

School is out … (and our students) are now free to roam for a few weeks.

Conventional wisdom says that they will spend three months not learning or, even worse, un-learning all that they have been taught.

But life is not simply built upon what we learn in the schoolhouse. Life teaches us lessons.

Kids will learn to swim this summer, right?

They’ll learn to ride bikes, and how to figure out whether they have enough change for a treat at the grocery store.

They’ll learn how fun a family vacation can be, or how great a lawn sprinkler is on a hot afternoon.

They’ll learn they don’t like getting sunburned, and they do like staying at Grandma’s house for a week.

You think school has the market on teaching kids important things?

Parents, we have the pleasure of these bonus months with our kids, and we’re fools if we neglect to give them lessons that school wasn’t necessarily made to teach them.

And, by the way, we can reinforce all the things that school teaches, too.

We can read to them and encourage them to read for themselves. We can have them count change, or keep track of their savings accounts.

We can talk to them when Memorial Day comes around, and we’ll likely be instructing them in one of the most important American and world history lessons they will ever need.

But there’s a special time coming up — a time of lemonade and grilled hamburgers, of scorching days and humid nights, of dusty ball fields and soft serve ice cream.

If you’re missing the chance to teach the kids how fun it is to live a good, clean, simple life full of inexpensive but memorable joys, then I’m afraid school next fall isn’t going to do them much good.

You see, building a kid’s education is like building your own home. The whole structure is only as sound and strong as its foundation.

When parents lay solid groundwork, your local school can help build an educational structure that makes you and your kids proud.

And that foundation is solid for sure — but reading, writing and arithmetic are just part of educational success.

You and I giving our kids good, loving experiences is not just a treatment for many of society’s ills.

It’s the cure for them.