“I’d rather learn from one bird how to sing than to teach ten thousand stars how not to dance.” – E.E Cummings
Have you ever seen someone full of eagerness to learn that they kept on trying and practicing to their heart’s content and when they get to learn the ideas they wanted to comprehend, they shrieked carelessly out of pure delight?
“I got it, Mommy!”
What a remarkable statement that is for a home educating family. When traveling to new countries, that statement with different world scenes as backdrop, where they claim to learn something in an out-of-box method, is beyond an awe-inspiring statement.
Those moments are contagious. We can’t help but feel ecstatic about whatever they are learning, whatever is important for them to learn. The songs they want to sing and how they sing it.
Insert the image of Archimedes running naked around town, shouting Eureka! Eureka!! He has found the answer!
We don’t really get that passionate inside the four corners of our classrooms, do we?
Traveling and home educating shares the same purpose for our family. Song birds singing in their natural habitats. Finding their songs and unleashing the power of their music. The passion, the bliss of singing under the brilliant stars!
Oh, the stars!
The stars mean different things to different people. Shining stars, their brilliance is simply magnificent, twinkling the night away.
“Someday, I want to be a star!” becomes a popular dream for everyone. There are gazillion stars up there trying to outshine each other. It’s a beautiful sky. But as e.e Cummings noted, there are no dancing!
Institutionalized. One word we learned as we embarked on our family goals. One word we started to detest and shield our kids from. Yet one, we can’t run away from. One word we defines as “No unique dancing allowed.”
During our school days, remember those times that we have to excel at examinations to show the administrators, our parents and classmates that we are shining brightly because we are top of the class or we got several awards and medals? Was it really that important?
We have been there. Top of the class, lots of medals. Not really that relevant in the real world.
We’ve also seen students who were bad at math and staying extra hours to study to ace a test over practicing violin or traveling on a summer vacation.
Shine bright, stars. That is what stars are supposed to do, isn’t it?
Institutionalized. The lazy way to dream, copy the dream and goals defined by the institutions and live the happy, mediocre lifestyle.
There are lots of bright stars but only when the sky is dark. The system is dark.
Our family is part of the system, we can break free for that, but for this period, the system prevails. We can only hope that there will be revolution in the future to free our stars and let the dancing starts!
For now, we travel and learn as a lifestyle. There will be “dark” moments. We do what we can.
Everytime we have those Eureka, song bird moments from our kids, we are taught again and again, (and again..and so on!).. that anything worth learning can’t be taught. Stars can’t make their own bright lights.
The birds, the birds create their own happy songs.
Happy singing birds over brilliant stars. Why not?
Happy singing!
Turknoy Travels 100! 