Beautiful Minds

I’m thankful for unique learners!

 

My SPD/SLD/ADD (Sensory Processing Disorder, Specific Learning Disability-Dyslexia, Visual and Auditory Processing Disorders, Attention Deficit Disorder, etc) sweetie, aka Renaissance Girl, has raised the bar on my homeschooling skills more times than I can count. Her beautiful mind sees the world through a unique lens similar to those of historical icons such as Thomas Edison, Leonardo Da Vinci, Benjamin Franklin, and Albert Einstein. While academics have been a huge challenge for her, the artistic and musical gifts she’s been given are incredible, and her gentle, sensitive soul is a rare and precious treasure. Many years of therapy have yielded the ability to read, and she’s like a butterfly newly emerged from her cocoon. Jane Eyre, Little Women, Anne of Green Gables, all have sent her beautiful mind soaring to different times and places, and all have become intimate, lifelong friends with my sweet girl. I am so blessed to be entrusted with such a unique child to guide and grow and love! 

 

One of my girl’s drawings!

 

Einstein recognized his unique lens and often commented about it and about how organized education systems didn’t accommodate individuality and creativity. Here is a look into this ‘unique learner’s’ mind in his own words:

 

 

 

Education is what remains after one has forgotten what one has learned in school. Albert Einstein

A man should look for what is, and not for what he thinks should be.
Albert Einstein

It is a miracle that curiosity survives formal education.
Albert Einstein 

A person who never made a mistake never tried anything new.
Albert Einstein

A question that sometimes drives me hazy: am I or are the others crazy?
Albert Einstein

The only thing that interferes with my learning is my education.
Albert Einstein

All that is valuable in human society depends upon the opportunity for development accorded the individual.
Albert Einstein 

Any intelligent fool can make things bigger and more complex… It takes a touch of genius – and a lot of courage to move in the opposite direction.
Albert Einstein

Any man who can drive safely while kissing a pretty girl is simply not giving the kiss the attention it deserves. (One of my favorite Einstein quotes, lol!) 
Albert Einstein

Any man who reads too much and uses his own brain too little falls into lazy habits of thinking.
Albert Einstein

 

Do not worry about your difficulties in Mathematics. I can assure you mine are still greater.
Albert Einstein

Everything should be as simple as it is, but not simpler.
Albert Einstein

Everything that can be counted does not necessarily count; everything that counts cannot necessarily be counted.
Albert Einstein

Few are those who see with their own eyes and feel with their own hearts.
Albert Einstein 

God always takes the simplest way.
Albert Einstein 

He who can no longer pause to wonder and stand rapt in awe, is as good as dead; his eyes are closed.
Albert Einstein

He who joyfully marches to music in rank and file has already earned my contempt. He has been given a large brain by mistake, since for him the spinal cord would suffice.
Albert Einstein 

I am enough of an artist to draw freely upon my imagination.
Albert Einstein 

I have no special talent. I am only passionately curious.
Albert Einstein 

I think and think for months and years. Ninety-nine times, the conclusion is false. The hundredth time I am right.
Albert Einstein

I used to go away for weeks in a state of confusion.
Albert Einstein

I want to know all Gods thoughts; all the rest are just details.
Albert Einstein

If people are good only because they fear punishment, and hope for reward, then we are a sorry lot indeed.
Albert Einstein 

If we knew what it was we were doing, it would not be called research, would it?
Albert Einstein

If you are out to describe the truth, leave elegance to the tailor.
Albert Einstein

If you can’t explain it simply, you don’t understand it well enough.
Albert Einstein

Imagination is everything. It is the preview of life’s coming attractions.
Albert Einstein

Imagination is more important than knowledge.
Albert Einstein

In matters of truth and justice, there is no difference between large and small problems, for issues concerning the treatment of people are all the same.
Albert Einstein 

Information is not knowledge.
Albert Einstein 

Intellectuals solve problems, geniuses prevent them.
Albert Einstein 

It is the supreme art of the teacher to awaken joy in creative expression and knowledge.
Albert Einstein 

It’s not that I’m so smart, it’s just that I stay with problems longer.
Albert Einstein 

Once we accept our limits, we go beyond them.
Albert Einstein 

 

Only a life lived for others is a life worthwhile.
Albert Einstein 

Only two things are infinite, the universe and human stupidity, and I’m not sure about the former.
Albert Einstein 

Perfection of means and confusion of ends seem to characterize our age.
Albert Einstein 

Pure mathematics is, in its way, the poetry of logical ideas.
Albert Einstein 

Science without religion is lame, religion without science is blind.
Albert Einstein 

Strive not to be a success, but rather to be of value.
Albert Einstein 

The gift of fantasy has meant more to me than my talent for absorbing positive knowledge.
Albert Einstein 

The high destiny of the individual is to serve rather than to rule.
Albert Einstein

The important thing is not to stop questioning. Curiosity has its own reason for existing.
Albert Einstein 

The most beautiful thing we can experience is the mysterious. It is the source of all true art and science.
Albert Einstein 

The only real valuable thing is intuition.
Albert Einstein 

The only source of knowledge is experience.
Albert Einstein

The process of scientific discovery is, in effect, a continual flight from wonder.
Albert Einstein

The pursuit of truth and beauty is a sphere of activity in which we are permitted to remain children all our lives.
Albert Einstein 

The true sign of intelligence is not knowledge but imagination.
Albert Einstein 

The value of a man should be seen in what he gives and not in what he is able to receive.
Albert Einstein

The whole of science is nothing more than a refinement of everyday thinking.
Albert Einstein

The world is a dangerous place to live; not because of the people who are evil, but because of the people who don’t do anything about it.
Albert Einstein

There are two ways to live: you can live as if nothing is a miracle; you can live as if everything is a miracle.
Albert Einstein 

There is no logical way to the discovery of these elemental laws. There is only the way of intuition, which is helped by a feeling for the order lying behind the appearance.
Albert Einstein 

To raise new questions, new possibilities, to regard old problems from a new angle, requires creative imagination and marks real advance in science.
Albert Einstein 

Try not to become a man of success, but rather try to become a man of value.
Albert Einstein 

We cannot despair of humanity, since we ourselves are human beings.
Albert Einstein

We cannot solve our problems with the same thinking we used when we created them.
Albert Einstein

We shall require a substantially new manner of thinking if mankind is to survive.
Albert Einstein

We should take care not to make the intellect our god; it has, of course, powerful muscles, but no personality.
Albert Einstein 

Weakness of attitude becomes weakness of character.
Albert Einstein

When I examine myself and my methods of thought, I come to the conclusion that the gift of fantasy has meant more to me than any talent for abstract, positive thinking.
Albert Einstein

When the solution is simple, God is answering.
Albert Einstein 

Joy in looking and comprehending is nature’s most beautiful gift.
Albert Einstein 

Learn from yesterday, live for today, hope for tomorrow. The important thing is not to stop questioning.
Albert Einstein 

Logic will get you from A to B. Imagination will take you everywhere.
Albert Einstein

Look deep into nature, and then you will understand everything better.
Albert Einstein

Love is a better teacher than duty.
Albert Einstein 

Most people say that is it is the intellect which makes a great scientist. They are wrong: it is character.
Albert Einstein

My religion consists of a humble admiration of the illimitable superior spirit who reveals himself in the slight details we are able to perceive with our frail and feeble mind.
Albert Einstein 

 

 
Never lose a holy curiosity.
Albert Einstein

Award-winnning author, L.R.Knost, is the founder and director of the children's rights advocacy and family consulting group, Little Hearts/Gentle Parenting Resources, and Editor-in-Chief of Holistic Parenting Magazine. Books by L.R.Knost include Whispers Through Time: Communication Through the Ages and Stages of Childhood ; Two Thousand Kisses a Day: Gentle Parenting Through the Ages and Stages ; The Gentle Parent: Positive, Practical, Effective Discipline ; and Jesus, the Gentle Parent: Gentle Christian Parenting the first four books in the Little Hearts Handbook gentle parenting series, and children’s picture books Petey’s Listening Ears and the soon-to-be-released Grumpykins series.