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Our little Renaissance boy

14 September 2008 2 views 4 Comments

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Last night, M was drawing, using Dot Art markers. They make lines about 3/4-1″ thick. I see him draw an upside down ‘V’ and contemplate. After 20 seconds, he covers the apex with his hand, then speaks to me.

M: Arpy?
A: Yeah?
M: Doesn’t this look like our walkway?
A: Huh?
M: Doesn’t this look like our walkway?
(he turns the paper so I get a better look; pause while I scratch my head)
A: I don’t really understand what you’re saying.
M (losing patience): Doesn’t this look like our WALKWAY? When I look down the walkway it’s gets smaller as it gets farther away.
A (surprised that M seems to have discovered linear perspective): Oh.. yeah, it does.

I love these little surprises when you realize that your children’s minds are always at work, that they are always learning whether we know it or not. Who knows when he first made the observation about the walkway? We don’t hear about the exact moment when such a light goes off; we only only know when they explicitly say or do something (when our mind connects the dots). A big part of unschooling has been trusting that learning happens, and these moments really inspire confidence.

4 Comments »

Saratica said:

I love those moments. My greatest challenge – still – is not to say, “Just a minute, I’m in the middle of something.” What a tragedy.

Saratica’s last blog post..Finding The Red-Eyed Tree Frog

# 14 September 2008 at 7:46 am

Arp (author) said:

Yes – we have to de-school and retrain ourselves more than anything else. The kids are just fine as they are.

# 14 September 2008 at 8:02 am

Trish said:

Yes, I think I’ve been saying, “In a minute…” so often that J has started to mimic me. Sigh. Problem is, my brain has trouble switching topics so quickly, and I tend to block out other stimuli when I’m concentrating on something. So I sometimes miss a lot with the kids when I should really be paying attention. Gotta work harder on that myself.

# 14 September 2008 at 9:59 am

Hillary said:

I love this. It’s so true. We watched kids play with a fan and a pinwheel last night figuring out physics and movement and they were having so much fun doing it!

So happy to have found your blog