Natural Learning Goes On

Lately, between the health crisis with my aunt and the fact that my daughter is going overseas for a semester (leaving tomorrow!) I have been preoccupied and rather an emotional wreck.  But even under such circumstances, kids, being kids, are still learning.

I went to bed early last night but my 12 yo son had his dad helping him solve some of the problems from Sideways Arithmetic from Wayside School.  They were doing this for fun before my son retired to bed.  I came down to the kitchen this morning to find this:

And apparently Becky is back to running her own restaurant.  As you can see she's devised a survey to make sure her customers are satisfied!

I find this kind of thing so heartening.  If kids are given freedom, where they are safe, nurtured and encouraged, they do a fine job of learning.  I know so many moms who are frightened of the idea of letting go and letting their kids take control over their own education.  They say that their kids will only play mindless video games or some such thing.  But I have found in the years that I've been at this, that when kids' lives are tightly regulated they will tend to mindless stuff when they have down time.  But given more freedom they tend to do really cool, creative things just as a matter of course in daily life, like these two rather minor examples. Really, these are just a couple of little incidents among dozens that go on every day.  We, the parents, have to open our eyes, though, to see them and to value them as they should be valued.  I could have taken control and said, okay, today children we are going to do problems from this Wayside school book.  They might have enjoyed it.  But I think it is soooo much better that my son instigated this little activity.  I could have made a lesson plan that involved creating your own survey for your own restaurant, but I think my daughter probably learned more from coming up with the idea herself.