I remember when the boys were younger and we would visit museums. They would race through. Looking at a few things. Reading next to nothing and with rarely a question. I was irritated. I thought they should stop and see it all. Thankfully I remembered being a child and being fully annoyed at how long it took my dad, who stopped to read every last sign to get out of the museum. So I took a deep breath and kept my agenda to myself. We spent much time returning to familiar museums and I followed their interests and breathed through the release of my agenda and thoughts on what learning ought to be happening.
Yesterday we went to the California Academy of Sciences for a second time. We hit the favorite spots. This time slowly. I was asked to read signs. Every case needed to be examined. Questions were posed, answered and some times just wondered about. One boy stopped to listen to a discussion about the giant pendulum. While I followed the other to engage in a trivia game. We all sat through a delightful presentation on the diversity of Africa. I stopped to recognize, they were now more like I had wanted them to be in the early days. And I breathed a sigh of gratitude that I had forever followed their interests instead of enforcing my agenda. It has provided them a lifetime of curiosity for that which sparks their mind.
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