"Children do not need to be made to learn about the world, or shown how. They want to, and they know how." -John Holt
For some reason, I had the notion that kite flying would involve me running my ass off trying to keep a mammoth kite aflight alternating with desperately re-winding long lines of tangled string all the while the children would look on, listless and bored.
But oh! On the contrary! Our first experience with kites was not in the least bit tragic. Gabriel spied the $5 buggers at Target last week and before I knew it, we were at the always-windy park ready to give them a whirl.
Simone's turtle kite flew with minimal effort but that didn't stop her from pulling a Forrest Gump. Run Bomey Run!
Gabriel's dragon proved to be a tad more challenging but all the reason to run even harder.
And you know where my butt was the whole time? Firmly planted on the ground. That's where. And I'll say it again... kites are genius.
"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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