Have you ever had a lesson with a student or a project you helped your child with that left you feeling curious and intellectually stimulated? These lessons feel too few and far between — there are so many fundamentals and standards for students to learn these days that sometimes it feels like the love of learning is squeezed out of young kids, despite the best intentions of the world’s teachers. However, there are those moments of educational bliss where we see the shine in a child’s eye where a renewed wonder of the world is set aflame.
A 12-Year-Old Explorer Uncovering the World’s Hidden Historical Gems
“What if we learned about the history of women’s voting rights in other countries next week? I wonder if it’s different in other parts of the world.”
I sat stunned in front of the precocious young girl who sat across from me. At only 12 years old, Aarya* had an insatiable appetite for exploring the world around her. She loved school but also loved learning beyond the traditional curriculum, constantly wanting to push the boundaries of knowledge and go beyond the constraints of the K-12 school standards. If we learned about one topic, she’d want to extend it to another country or another time period, seeing what was hiding just around the corner of what we had learned in our lesson. She wanted to uncover the hidden annals of history, and I enjoyed the treasure hunt of learning we engaged in each week.
Aarya and I had studied almost every major figure in the British monarchy, a variety of South Asian religions, the Harlem Renaissance, and approximately sixty other topics, all at her request. This girl loved to learn and our lessons wove beautifully into overlapping topics, swooping back and forth through history into a beautiful web that showed the interconnectedness of our world. As an educator, I not only enjoyed seeing Aarya blossom and grow more curious about learning, but I also got to learn about new topics and bring my own critical thinking to our lessons.
La Jolla Learning’s EXPLORE! Program: Where Curiosity Leads and Learning Follows
While Aarya is a special student who naturally wants to learn more, I began thinking about the power of this type of education. No grades, no pressure, just pure joy through learning! I thought about all of the other types of students who may be equally curious and could develop or further their appetite for learning through guided, open-ended learning. This led me to create a curriculum that would allow students to explore their interests in a semi-structured way where they would be amply supported but would also have some choice in their learning, as well as have guidance in creating projects that would reflect and also expand what they learned.
With that said, we are proud to introduce La Jolla Learning’s EXPLORE! Academic Enrichment Program.
