For a long time, Esmé was concentrating on researching, collecting and making notes and art about snails. It was her ‘project‘ for the last 18 months or more, and it was pretty easy to define, focus on, and cater to. But for the last six months or so, her interests have broadened to include ladybugs and spiders and butterflies and horn worms, and from there towards things like dissection, flower & plant structures, meteors, weather, fish, crabs, mussels, bees & wasps, and earthworms. Right now in our atelier/lab, we have worms, spiders, slugs, snails, pill bugs, and a ladybug. We also have several dead insects and withered cocoons and various bits of natural ephemera that have caught her eye and been granted entry into her small ‘treasure’ box. This morning, we put in a request with her uncle at the pet store for any dead fish or animals he might come across, for dissection purposes. And also a request to know when they’re going to feed the boa constrictor its weekly mouse, so that she can watch.
At what point is the snail project done? Or is it ever done?
Esmé’s focus has been shifting slowly and has been such an organic progression that I haven’t discerned a natural finish to what started out with five simple questions she asked about snails after she collected that very first one so long ago. That Virginia Woolf quote comes to mind; “Writing a novel is like walking through a dark room, holding a lantern which lights up what is already in the room anyway.” And the E. L. Doctorow one: “Writing is like driving at night in the fog. You can only see as far as your headlights, but you can make the whole trip that way.”
Learning, and growing … heck, even living, is like that too. It’s all there, and we’re discovering it as it becomes illuminated. Which brings me to the C. S. Lewis quote: “We do not truly see light, we only see slower things lit by it.” Three brilliant thinkers, all essentially saying the same thing. Move forward through the shadows, drinking it all in as it becomes lit. And yes, that applies to writing, but to learning too.
The awesome thing about child-led learning is that it doesn’t matter. There’s no unit to complete, no specified set of academic objectives to meet, no ‘subjects,’ no tests to sit. Esmé’s curiosity determines where she wants to go next, and she goes there, lantern in hand, learning as she goes.
If you haven’t already, head on over to Camp Creek and order Lori Pickert’s book “Project-Based Homeschooling – Mentoring Self Directed Learners.” After years of reading absolutely everything I could get my hands on about homeschooling, unschooling, and child-led learning, her book remains my favourite, and is the only one that remains on my ruthlessly and continuously culled bookshelf.