The Meandering Path of Learning

Last week, I turned in my education plan to the superintendent's office. It's quite ambitious, but also planned with Henry's input, so I am confident that he'll complete everything we've set out for him to do. Our home schooling year wraps up at the end of June, and I'm tasked with putting together a final report for the school year.

I send in samples and we update Henry's web page that showcases some of his writing, pictures of things he's done and is our "practice" at presenting a form of an electronic portfolio. The report includes highlights of things Henry learned (and what I learned, as well). It is relatively comprehensive, yet it can never really capture the meandering path of learning a home school education provides. We learn just as much when we're just living life as from carefully crafted lesson plans based on well-researched texts and materials.

Just this morning, we went around the lake. Henry road his bike and I walked. As we traveled along, sometimes with him slowly pedaling beside me and other times with him circling back to me, we talked about all kinds of things. We began talking about a new program he found about Samurai through our Netflix subscription. From there, when his bike made a few creaking noises, we talked about his plan to work with Chris to learn bike maintenance. Henry's bike is a hand-me-down from Chris yet is a bike, when it was new, that cost $2,000, so it is worth keeping in excellent condition. It's a bike that will serve Henry well into his adulthood if he cares for it properly. So, item number one is that Henry will learn more about bike care and maintenance in the coming weeks.

Our conversation turned at one point turned to the film Wayne's World. I can't now remember what prompted the movie quote that first spawned the subsequent discussion, so let's suffice it to say, one of us said a quote from Wayne's World and the other said another back. From there, we talked about the way in which the film referenced the music of Led Zeppelin, yet did not use it. We're both aware that this band is famous for not participating with iTunes and that they "never" let their music be used in films or other advertising. Our conversation turned to whether we think this is good, bad, whether it protects artists rights and whether something so iconic should be protected. Is it able to be protected when it is so pervasive in a society? Does it limit other artists who might actually desire to pay tribute to its influence in their lives?

From there, I offered some known instances wherein a band sold a song for a purpose, such as advertising and how that can "ruin" the song for people. My example was the use of The Rolling Stones's "Start Me Up" by Microsoft when Windows was first released. This conversation took a little side trip into the history of computers. I explained to Henry about MS-DOS and how computer screens used to look, how you had to "start" software and user systems from a blank screen and all of that. I said, playing the side of "no sales of music" that I cannot hear "Start Me Up" now without thinking about the advertisement for Microsoft. Then again, I'm not perturbed when I hear other music and it reminds me of a film, per se. Our conversation about music and its use in movies, its ownership by artists and then by corporations turned many circles and took turns and looped all around like a game of chutes and ladders: climb to here, slide down to another spot. Wend around the bend, and so on. When we approached the "big hill" (which is merely steep not very "big") we stopped talking so he could ride ahead and ascend and I could keep pace without trying to talk.

Our discussion continued about corporate ownership of songs rather than artist ownership. We related it to things like Bill Waterson's (creator of Calvin & Hobbes) refusal to allow the comic to be animated and thus voiced. We talked about the potential of Henry's own drawings and artistic creations being sought after. We discussed contracts, what the difference is between ownership and rental or licensing of songs and other artistic media.

As we rounded the bend to head back home, our conversation returned to the samurai show he began watching so that he could catch me up in the plot so that I was not lost watching the next episode with him. He explained the sequence of events so far, then talked about the manifestation of steam punk and all it's incantations today. We got home and watched the show together.

As I sat on the sofa eating my breakfast, I couldn't help but also wonder about our conversation. Was that "school?" Henry definitely learned about some things such as the history of computers, the development of software, the concepts found in contracts and he did some critical thinking around philosophical issues, all while getting exercise and strengthening our relationship together. This is all without mention of the birds he identified while we made our way around the lake, as well.



The most wonderful part of this kind of meandering path of learning is that nothing is "gone" as being up for discussion or research and nothing is ever settled, either. Henry sits with kinds of knowledge that he can then re-create and assimilate or alter depending on new information. For example, for the past several months, he's been considering our government as it operates today. He is looking into alternatives. He's exploring the differences between communism, democracy, socialism, anarchy (not lawlessness, but rather self rule) and trying to figure each of them out to see what he finds the "best" for himself. As he does this, I'm reading Erich Fromm's Escape from Freedom, which is mostly a treatment specific to describing how the Nazis came to rule in Germany. It is a psychological explanation for the changes society has undergone as it moved from the middle ages toward today. Right now, Henry is spouting to his grandmother about socialism. He's singing the praises of people looking out for one another, for more sharing and for a sense of belonging. When we're talking about all of this, I keep plugging in little questions about "how do you decide who decides how much is shared?" and things like that as we discuss socialism. We talk about video games and computer games online and how interactions with others often leads to total lawlessness and to a me-first attitude and a total lack of consideration of others. In cyber-worlds where teamwork would lead to success, people abandon it even to their own peril, merely in a scramble to "win" some little battle while losing the war, as the saying goes. The cool thing is that these forms of government are not just defined, Henry is not tested to see if he memorized the definition and then we move on to something else. Rather, Henry gets to let them simmer and then brings them back to consider further. He can also claim he is a socialist one day, a democrat (small d intended!) and then a communist and none of these labels has to "stick." He is not defined by a set of peers for his views of one day. He is allowed to try things on, learn more about them, turn them inside out and then add them to his "wardrobe" or discard them for something else. This is the gift and bane of home learning as it is wondrous and magical, but not easily conveyed on paper in a report. I guess that is how it is with the most beautiful and amazing things in life, learning included!