I believe that the early years of a child’s life are best spent in exposure and exploration, with a good dose of excitement regularly thrown into the mix. Certainly my kids learn how to read, write, and “do” math. However, when we began homeschooling 17 years ago, it never occurred to me to give tests to measure the kids’ progress. Their understanding of what they were learning was clear in many ways.

For instance, my children tend to talk non-stop about whatever they are studying at any given time. To be honest, in the beginning, this trait bothered me. I thought I was just as interested in learning new things as anyone else. I considered myself a highly inquisitive person. Then my children started bombarding me with the hundreds of engrossing facts they were absorbing about atoms and portcullises and spiders. They started regaling me with story after story about Churchill and the pyramids in Egypt and the lost colony of Roanoke. Upon deeper reflection, I realized I had spent my school years merely studying to ace the tests. I had earned my coveted A grades, but so much of what I studied had been mine for only a few weeks . . . or even just days. I had never really enjoyed learning for the sake of learning.

My children were different from the beginning. They read voraciously, covering topics far and wide, with no subject apparently too boring or trivial for them. They took what they learned and eagerly passed on their newfound knowledge to others because they found learning a fascinating hobby and assumed everyone else would be just as curious as they were. Quickly, one of my highest goals became somehow keeping that love of learning alive in them forever. Many years later, I feel we continue to reach this goal in our homeschooling through avoiding the dreaded test mentality.

To illustrate how knowledge and competence in a subject can be verified without testing, think about the way children study music. Perhaps your son begins with the clarinet when he is 10 years old. He takes private lessons once a week with a local teacher. He practices every day, sometimes with energy and enthusiasm, sometimes with a bit of nagging. He progresses through various exercise books, mastering increasingly harder scales, acquiring vocabulary in several foreign languages, and developing the ability to maintain challenging rhythms. He listens to CDs of different composers’ music and realizes they all have their individual styles. He works through and polishes some of his favorite pieces, and gradually he organizes the composers into appropriate groups in his mind.

Your son performs once or twice a year in recitals with other students, and you proudly applaud his efforts. He discovers, one way or another, how best to handle his nervousness before a crowd. He begins to channel that adrenaline into his performance, and you watch him gain confidence. He auditions for a community youth orchestra and is thrilled to earn a spot. He realizes that playing in a group requires cooperation and teamwork, precision and balance. As he grows older, he joins the community band as well.