Why I Worldschool

Keeping up with Cesar's self-education can be a little 😬🥵🫨 at times! I can start counting the terms I have to Google in order to understand what he is telling me in what he would consider a 'normal conversation'. 

Right now, Cesar is into taxonomy. In the picture below, he has created several phyla of classes out of his clay, explaining to me the sexual dymorphism, sexual and asexual reproductive methods within species, and the pleomorphism present within some of the species he's created. He then explains to me that he believes that tardigrades are not highly resistant and able to survive things like the vaccuum of space on purpose, but that they are extremophiles and their heartness is simply side-effect of this. (Total number of googles on my part: 6).

Cesar can become frustrated with me when I take some time to quickly educate myself while talking to him. He wonders why I don't know things, how this world can be so interesting and amazing, and why have I not taken the time to learn all about it? I have to explain to him that my childhood education was prescribed to me by others, and that I went from full-time school directly into full-time work. I had to be honest and tell him that my free time was spent moslty escaping the rest of my life, and that I was turned off from 'learning' as it had come to feel like a chore and was very boring in how it was presented through school. It only occurred to me in my adult life that I could become passionate about something and do my own research and investigations. 

Children that are moved through the education system do not get to nurture their personal interests nor spend timeless moments in their fascinations. To me, this is what that fleeting moment called 'childhood' should be all about. Most of us did not get to live it this way, but for those of us that see value in this approach, we can give it to the next generation. Cesar is an amazing example of how a child's appetite for learning is naturally voracious! All we have to do is give him the tools like reading and vocabulary, guidance, and lots of patience to see it all through to the development of this incredible human being that he is - not only in 'what he knows' - that is not the most important thing. It's about Who He Is within himself, toward others and the whole.