Regular readers of my blog will recognize that I am a ginormous geek, but my geekdom is pretty well confined to the humanities. I read classic literature, translate Latin and Greek, work on French and Spanish (once in a while), learn history, diagram sentences, peruse ancient rhetoric texts, write creative non-fiction, recite poetry, and think about linguistics. It's not that I don't like science and math; I went to a math and science magnet school for high school, for Jupiter's sake. It's just that they don't thrill me and fill up my daily life.
So, as Livy accompanies me on a romp through existence, her exposure to ideas and educational materials can be a little bit one-sided. Of just how one sided, I was unaware until recently.
As you know, I have been bemoaning her lack of academic interest and worrying about what it means and generally not living up to my standards of minding my own business about her interests. At least, I've been doing that in my head. I've still been good about not bothering her and bossing her into doing things she isn't interested in. But, as I was reminded on a trip to the local science museum, science is an academic subject. Who knew? :)
In the hands-on section of the museum, Livy did every single electricity project available, and she did them thoroughly. It took us about 45 minutes, during which her friends moved on to something else (unusual because she would ordinarily have followed them). When I saw how strong her interest was, I realized that I haven't been meeting her sciency needs.
She is an engineering type, I think. She likes to build things out of Legos and to figure out how things work on her own by tinkering. Math has always been a stronger interest for her than reading, and she loves to hear me read non-fiction books on animals, space, and fossils. I don't know how I got away from providing her with the option for science exploration, but I did. I guess it just doesn't come naturally to me, and so it fell out of our lives.
I've learned my lesson now. Since the museum, we have done tons of electricity experiments of our own (series and parallel circuits, resistors, LEDs, fuses, building an electromagnetic motor, and using switches). I checked out a bunch of books that I think she will like about a multitude of science topics, and we are considering a junior astronomy course at our beloved museum. Basically, I am not neglecting this whole interesting side of human knowledge as I provide her with materials and options for learning.
So, I'm taking a few new lessons from this experience:
1. Everyone is not like me, and I need to get out of my own head and into Livy's. I can't use my yardstick to measure everybody else.
2. Science is pretty fun, and I can expand my own life-learning journey by participating in Livy's.
3. The second I start to worry about Livy's progress, some new thing will come along to surprise and inspire me. I need to chill.
4. That key ingredient of life-learning, strewing the environment with cool stuff, requires me to get outside my own comfort zone of activities and materials.
For those of you living with science lovers: We've been using Snap Circuits to do electricity projects, and we LOVE them. The kit comes with millions of parts and a project book, and the snap in pieces are easier for Livy to manage than wires (though we are using those too). She can use the Snap Circuits much more independently. Have fun!
