Real Learning

The co-op we joined this past week is such a delight. The people were so welcoming and friendly. Kendra blogged about it here. We were all so happy, deep inside like when you know something is right, something "clicked". The girls chose to nix Economics and high school Geography, but they both opted to take English, 20th Century Literature, Biology, Art and Drama. I was surpised that Kaitlyn was choosing to take Biology, having always liked science, but always shying away from a challenge, but choose she did. This week as she has worked on Module 1, she has had all sorts of questions, and been challenged in many new ways. Yesterday she was struggling with a question, and asked for my help. We stretched out across my bed and read the section together, and talked about it - and I couldn't give her the answer. Not I wouldn't - I couldn't. But here was the best part - in all our the ways our philosophy of education and how people learn has changed over the past couple of years, I had to tell her that it was okay to say "I don't know" for both of us. She has an opportunity if she chooses, to learn, really learn. We talked about how important it is to learn for the sake of learning - and not to let anyone else pressure her to feel compelled to focus on getting the "right answers" but to press on for the joy of studying something of interest. I told her that it might be helpful for the other kids in the class if she is willing to say she doesn't know or understand and to ask the question that everybody else wants to know but is too afraid to ask. Life just keeps presenting opportunities to learn. My job is to facilitate them with whatever they choose to learn. It is so awesome and liberating not to have to have all the answers, but to be a fellow student with them in the school of life.