Trees, Sculpture and a Jay

The children and I visited Kew Gardens yesterday. We wanted to experience the new tree-top walkway. My middle son and I planned a route and he took charge of navigation. We saw a jay hopping about and got close enough to have really good look. We also found a shiny blue striped feather which we guessed must have come from a jay. We climbed over 100 stairs to walk in the tree tops. While we ate our picnic, we watched some artists finishing a sculpture (which I must confess I had assumed was a support structure for plants!) We fed the ducks and the children were delighted when some fish came to partake of the free meal and we even saw an eel - identified by the position of its 'flippers' and its incredible length. We had a look at another sculpture, this one carved into a fallen oak, enlightening us on the internal structure of the tree. We visited the new Sherwood Gallery and marvelled at the intricacy and beauty of the detailed botanical paintings. We came home tired and agreed we'd had a great day!

Writing this has given me new perspective on the amount of 'education' that took place in our walk. I can even categorise the experiences as subjects: Geography (map-reading), Natural History (birds, fish and eels), Biology (trees), Art (sculpture and painting), Physical Education(walking); there is always a gremlin within doing just that. (Conversely, it is often the one whispering, 'What are they learning here?') However, I think such categorisation belittles our experience, as if worth is dependent on fitting the classifcation of subject areas, as if the world and life itself could be divided up into 'educational' and, by extension, 'non-educational'.

John Stilgoe, in his book 'Outside Lies Magic' writes of his experience of teaching the art of exploration at Harvard University: 'Many students resist the lack of topic structure because they are the children of structured learning.' As I grow as a Home Educator, I want to resist that resistance and to trust that 'exploration happens best by accident, by letting way lead on to way' and to truly live this adventure with my children.