Questions, questions

It frequently suprises me how little I know. Not only that, but how much I don't even realise that I don't know. My eldest son once asked me how thick a rainbow is. The question fascinated me, the concept had never occured to me.

In the one Home Ed seminar I managed to get to at HESFES, I was reintroduced to some research on thirty four-year-olds and the conversations they had with their mothers at home and with teachers at school. The researchers found that these girls asked an average of 26 questions an hour of their mothers and only 2 per hour of teachers. In addition, the questions asked of the teachers were mostly 'business' questions, 'Where's the glue?', but that 'challenges' were rare and 'passages of intellectual search', entirely absent. The amazon review of this book describes how:

'conversations at home revealed the children as persistent and logical thinkers, puzzling to grasp new ideas.'

There are times that I find my childrens' questions exhausting and I feel like Mrs Butler, but at the same time I marvel at the pondering and contemplation that brings forth these questions. I delight in the passages of intellectual search and the puzzling to grasp new ideas. I love the belief that the world and its inhabitants should make sense and I often find that what I have taken for granted or never considered does not make sense at all.

My husband's school breaks up for the Summer today and we are driving down for a week's holiday in Corfe Castle and the seaside at Swanage. I am hoping to find an internet cafe and post while away. If not, I'll be back next Friday.