My learning about learning

Today I was reminded once again that human beings naturally learn - without the "help" of formal classes and/or workbooks. Conversations, reading books, everyday living: these are the best mediums for learning.
I was listening to a podcast while I was working out this morning. I've been feeling that social pressure of "your kids won't learn what they need to know without a class to teach them" in more than one area. As I listened to some of the posts on "unschooling" or "natural learning" as just plain real learning is commonly referred to, I was overwhelmed with the knowledge that there wasn't really a whole lot of planning that my husband and I really have to "do" to educate our children about life - physical, or spiritual.
The other day, I was asking my husband about what he does in his Sunday school classes with the kids. He teaches a small class each Sunday, and I was having a panic attack that our children weren't "getting what they needed."
"What is it that you want me to be telling them?", he asked. I thought. "Well, I guess about the major Bible stories...." "They already know a lot of those," he replied, "I want my Sunday school class NOT to be boring", he said. I thought about how our children learn "educational" things here at home, and I realized that spiritual teaching will take place the same way; through everyday conversation about how we live, through our reading and discussing the Bible, like when I am reading and something really sticks out to me, and I say, "Hey guys! This is really interesting!" And I set out to share what is exciting me. And because my excitement is contagious, they listen. And soak in information like sponges. MUCH more so than they would if they were listening to some dry lesson prepared by someone "trying to teach" them something. I know they are well intentioned, well thought out lesson plans. But they lack the realism of being pertinent to the moment. This is how humans learn! What matters to us at the moment sinks in and stays! Most of what we feel we "must learn" usually goes in one ear and out the other. (Unless of course we know we're being tested on it, and then it stays in between our ears long enough to do well on the test. Then it goes out the other side.)
So, I prayed as I was working out. I turned off the podcast for a few minutes, and I thanked God for showing me that learning spiritually doesn't have to be dry and hard to swallow or (as I was fearing) hard to share. Just like learning about anything else. I prayed that the Lord would help James and I to so intertwine our spiritual knowledge with our everyday lives that our children would be inundated with it. Soaked, immersed. This way, the idea of Sunday School being "necessary to a child's learning the Scriptures" seems ridiculous. The home is the place where a child will receive most of their spiritual knowledge, just like their "education".