The Joys of Delight-Directed Learning

Imagine sitting your young teenage boy down and telling him, "Hey, I just came up with this great unit study idea! You'll be researching birds, reading all sorts of massive tomes written at a rather technical level, and you'll also be cramming for a test that requires you to read and study an entire subject in just one day, and you'll be designing and constructing a one room structure, and you'll be clearing brush and digging up hard-packed soil in order to build the foundation of said structure, and you'll be filling out governmental paperwork, and you'll be making stuff out of leather, and you'll be doing all sorts of other hands-on projects, and...and...and..."

Some, perhaps a lot, of teenage guys I know would simply despair if they were faced with all the work my son has been doing happily. But, then again, I know boys who have undertaken projects that would make my son groan.

It's the natural history museum thing all over again.

Years ago, my kids put together what they called their "Natural History Museum". It was all their own idea. They busily collected their specimens and made exhibits, researched animals and plant life, wrote reports, etc., etc. If I had assigned this amount of work, they no doubt would have protested. But, since it was their own idea, their own passion, their own delight, the work was exactly what they wanted to do.

And so my son has been hard at the work of learning, and enjoying himself all the while, striving towards a goal that is important to him. Delight-directed learning...if only all learning could be this way...