The Mission Begins...

Our Little Man is officially 2 years old and my deadline is finally here.  It's a self imposed deadline.  The kind that makes me get my butt in gear and actually do something I've been meaning to do.  This particular item on my lengthy to-do list: start writing about all we do as a family to allow LM to find and nurture his passion for learning as he grows (way too quickly, I might add!)  So, tonight I'm making the commitment to document all of our learnable moments here. 

You may be wondering, "why learnable moments"?  Well, I'm sure I will discuss it again in my upcoming posts, but let me just say for now that after a decade in the public education world, I'm not sure I totally appreciate the idea of a "teachable moment".  At least, not in the way it was always used in my experiences.  You see, a teachable moment implies the roles of learner and teacher.  One person accepting knowledge imparted from another, assumingly more knowledgeable.  Whereas, the idea of a learnable moment is much more fluid.  In a learnable moment, every person involved is gaining something new; learning from one another AND their environment or resources. This, to me, seems much more productive in building the "life long learners" we always talk about as educators. 

Anyway, I will leave it at that.  The details are better left for another day and another discussion. Hopefully someone will find something useful in all these ramblings of mine.  Maybe an idea, an activity, a plan, a product: whatever it may be, I'll be glad I had something to do with it.  In the grand scheme of things however, I'm mostly excited about getting organized and finally keeping track of everything we are doing to foster that passion for learning in our home.  So, here's wishing our little man a joyous third year filled with investigating, exploring and discovering.