"Children do not need to be made to learn about the world, or shown how. They want to, and they know how." -John Holt
We're not getting our hopes up or anything ('cause I hear a cold snap is on it's way for the weekend) but with a 45* afternoon, it was almost, sorta, kinda like Spring-enough for bikes in the driveway! And just barely recovered from the worst flu of my life only hours before, martyr that I am, bundled everyone up for some fresh air.
Does this look like the face of a boy who was barfing and feverish just 6 hours earlier? (
Believe me, it is.)
And this face... well she stopped two days prior so rest assured, she is on the mend.
This particular face was what started our downward spiral last friday evening (and saturday evening and the following sunday etc...). Never has this house seen more laundry in a week's time and we have plenty more than our fair share.
But things are looking up. With our resident bike expert giving out free tune-ups...
the bikes began to fly...
and yes a few spirits soared.
(And now I realize the sap is starting to leak. Time for more bed rest.)
"By nature people are learning animals. Birds fly; fish swim; humans think and learn. Therefore, we do not need to motivate children into learning by wheedling, bribing, or bullying. We do not need to keep picking away at their minds to make sure they are learning. What we need to do - and all we need to do - is to give children as much help and guidance as they need and ask for, listen respectfully when they feel like talking, and then get out of the way. We can trust them to do the rest."
John Holt
"In the end, the secret to learning is so simple: Think only about whatever you love. Follow it, do it, dream about it...and it will hit you: learning was there all the time, happening by itself." -Grace Llewellyn
"What we want to see is the child in pursuit of knowledge, not knowledge in pursuit of the child."
George Bernard Shaw
Real, natural learning is in the living. It's in the observing, the questioning, the examining, the pondering, the analyzing, the watching, the reading, the DO-ing, the living, the breathing, the loving, the JOY. It's in the joy. ~Anne Ohman
"How could youth better learn to live than by at once trying the experiment of living?" -Henry D. Thoreau
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