Real learning

JAM is one smart kid. I'm not one of those nutter fathers who was convinced his kid was bound for Yale while he was still in the womb. I have no pretentious notion that he will be the next Gates or Obama (hehehe). But, even though his school is trying to drill it out of him he still does love learning and I love that. Everyone who knows him knows he is a reading maniac. He went through the new Tiki Barber book in a day. I think he read it again the next day. You should have seen our friend Bin's face when she heard that. :) It was priceless.

So, why the blatant outpouring of pride? First, as I mentioned, the school system is trying their hardest to kill his love of learning with hours and hours of drill and kill. Gotta pass that test. HE'S IN 3RD GRADE FORCHRISTSAKE!!!! Let them enjoy learning for a little while longer! [Does anyone know of a school for kids who aren't in danger of failing and can read on or above grade level and even love math who don't need to be drilled into the ground to ensure they pass the damn test?] Even through all this my kid still loves to learn. If something is new, and exciting, but still learning, he'll eat it up. God I love that.

Second, my kid not only loves learning but he loves doing it with him mom and I. He will go anywhere, watch anything, read anything, with this bright light in his eyes. We've been to the zoo, the butterfly garden, the Smithsonian, the National Book Festival, real life practical learning opportunities. He loved them all. Today I found an article on the TechLearning site telling us about this cool add-on to Google Earth that shows over 12,000 objects that are orbiting Earth. You've got to check this out - it was very cool once JAM's wanna-be-geek dad figured out how to use it. :) So, here we were, it was 8pm on a school night, and we were spending our "special time" learning all about orbit, satellites, trajectory, USSTRATCOM, software like Google Earth.... I'm not sure if I made this obvious enough..... HE WAS LEARNING WHILE HAVING A GREAT TIME DOING IT!!! I really wish his school would learn how to do that. Having him sit next to me with an amazing smile on his face as we turned on and off individual orbital trajectories and set the Earth spinning. It was beautiful. He was beautiful.