An Example of Autonomous Self Directed Learning

So you might be reading our blog and thinking that a child wouldn’t learn anything unless they are made to in lesson? I thought like that too until we started to home educate and my children demonstrated to me that if I allow them to follow their interest (and facilitate their learning), then they can and will learn with a passion.

Here is one example of self directed autonomous learning.

Owen asked me “do animals have feelings?”. We looked up this topic on the internet and read about research into primate feelings, elephants who recognize the bones of their relatives and appear to grieve over the bones. We discussed the emotions of our pets. This led to a discussion on animal rights and conservation of animals. After this discussion Owen decided to adopt a Snow Leopard with £1 from his pocket money each week. After receiving this pack he went on to research endangered birds in the UK, red pandas, animals bought back from the brink of extinction and the categorization of endangered species. The discussion on red pandas also sparked a conversation about Fire Fox, internet browsers and internet politics including censorship of the internet in China.  All from one question!