We're currently reading Pollyanna, and Pollyanna's response to her new music lesson-reading lesson-cooking lesson-sewing lesson schedule got me thinking.
"Oh, but Aunt Polly, Aunt Polly, you haven't left me any time at all just to–to live."
"To live, child! What do you mean? As if you weren't living all the time!"
"Oh, of course I'd be BREATHING all the time I was doing those things, Aunt Polly, but I wouldn't be living. You breathe all the time you're asleep, but you aren't living. I mean living–doing things you want to do: playing outdoors, reading (to myself, of course), climbing hills, talking to Mr. Tom in the garden, and finding out all about the houses and the people and everything everywhere . . . That's what I call living, Aunt Polly. Just breathing isn't living."
Pollyanna is right.
And I have to ask myself:
In the middle of the
plans
lessons
agendas
programs
schedules
Do they have time to live?
I have found that in transitioning to a delight-directed style of learning my children are finding more and more time to
-
be curious
-
ask questions
-
find answers
- study what they want to study
They are really living.
And I love it.
I love this!
Oh, I love Pollyana! What an awesome quote… 🙂
I need to add this book to our read-aloud pile!
What a good reminder. I often take a step back and re-evaluate if we are going through the motions, scheduling too much, or if we are really living.
Oh dear Ami! You just caught an “Aunt Polly”. Thanks for the loving reminder 🙂
This is something to ponder, isn’t it? It makes me think that at the beginning of the school year when not much formal “schooling” was able to happen, we were still doing a whole lot of livin’. Thank you for posting this, Ami <3