The acorn doesn't fall far from the tree

Greetings Y'all ;

"How pleasant it is for a father to sit at his child's board. It is like an aged man reclining under the shadow of an oak which he has planted." Voltaire 

I stumbled upon this quote and obviously struck a chord . Y'all know I am also fond of the quote by Gallileo " I never met a man so ignorant I couldn't learn something from him " In my humble opinion Violtaire is speaking directly of a father - son relationship  whilst Gallileo is speaking in generalities. Both are good quotes and speak the truth. I believe I can learn from everyone and everyone has a message for me. I just need to pay attention and remain open. 

Now back to Voltaire. I wake up each day and ponder why the boy wonder will teach me. I am not ready to fully recline under the prodigal oak , he is still a sapling. But I am amazed how far he's come since being a tiny acorn. Still he teaches me everyday. 

His thirst for knowledge and strong , I'd dare say uncontrollable , desire to share that knowledge is gratifying. I was that lad, some might posit I still am. He has a broad range of interests but manages to find threads that bind those various interests into a commonality. Currently he in the vetting process of his PBL ( project based learning) project. He has several interests he wishes to expand on an is weeding through the core commonalities to discover his primary focus. He gets and loves the fluidity of the PBL work. 

This is a system filled with who, what why, and then , what if etc... There is no singular goal but rather the enjoyment of the expanding journey. I guide when need be but this is student driven. We've no end of unit exam because the research and the project show information processing and knowledge acquisition. The end result is deeper comprehension and cross curriculum integration. 

For those of you interested www.edutopia.com has some great info on PBL.  To be honest I took the premise from there. It is how I've alway taught but they have it name. I also expanded it to work with our unschooling system. 

I hope the phrase unschooling doesn't frightened anyone. It's basically a term that implies a Montesori style student led learning environment but take further down the student driven system. It's a paradigm shift from traditional classroom. Neither one is inherently better or worse on a whole because education is a personal journey for each individual. What works for one person may not work the next person. As Ross W.Greene, Ph. D states "children do well if they can"  I'd say people do well if they can. We are a world of seven billion sentient beings all deserving to find happiness and to be free of suffering. All striving to live, laugh, love and learn. 

Yesterday we studied algebra for two hours , geography for an hour and read for over six hours . I'd call that a love ofearni g and thirst of knowledge. It also made for a quiet and calm humble abode. It's a great joy to watch him read for pleasure , because one idea expanded to another and then teach what he learned to me. To let me ask questions. Some he readily knew the answer to others meant continued research. Research he devoured. I remember I used to sit for hours getting lost in encyclopedias. I guess the acorn don't fall far from the tree.