Passionately Curious
During this Wednesday’s final Parent Lunch Meeting of the year I posed a session theme question: What is the difference between passion and interest? One father passionately answered “passion is love.” His passion caught the parent community on fire and honestly his words and the emotion behind his words are now beautifully cemented in my being. After hearing his simple yet poignant definition many parents passionately agreed and with great conversation quickly posed intricacies and connections of how passion and interest are different and orderly. One mom helped us all reframe “Interest is a great way to start and then when your interest grows then hopefully passion develops.”
When I asked learners this same question one wise learner shared “passion is the thing that you love doing that is you, interest is something you like but don’t have to do, it’s just ok.”
So, what does it mean to be passionately curious? Passionately curious is the love for the unknown, the drive to wonder and explore new things. All of our children have been 100% passionately curious this session, regardless if an activity was their thing, every learner asked and wondered why their fellow travelers love karate, the steps to a cartwheel, how its possible to make words and not move your mouth when working with puppets, what the challenges might be when playing on a competitive soccer team, how art relaxes, and so much more. There is always a question, always a curiosity waiting to be awakened. The commitment to curiosity is love, a passion for learning.
This week it was your turn, parents attending our lunch tried one new thing, preferably one thing they normally wouldn’t try. Thank you for passionately giving it a whirl and for humoring my choices of hip-hop dance, finger knitting, and butterfly origami. I loved seeing your commitment, your paper and yarn prizes, and your now stellar moves! Sometimes being passionately bad at something can be just as joyful as passionately great. Thank you to all that attended and for your enthusiasm, thoughts, willingness to try new things, and your warmth and passion for our Acton community. I am truly grateful to have each of you on this passionate journey. To the now passionate Acton veteran dad who shared your love for parent lunches, you made my day. Your honesty and Wednesday share that you love seeing the changing journey language in parents gave my passion of community a great glow, thank you.
If you happened to miss our lunch, here are some questions to ponder:
Is it more important that your passion leads to a gain or that it remains fun?
Do you hope your child’s passion leads them to a career path or pure enjoyment?
How do you support your child’s passion, do you lead, they lead, do you do nothing, or do you set the stage around the house?
As learners move into the final week of Passions Quest they not only are deciding on their project presentation they are passionately defining who they are and what they love. For many learners defining their passion was easy and for some it was a struggle. “I have too many I can’t pick. I can’t just do one.” One creative learner in Spark struggled with defining her passion path. She stressed to choose her passion for the Exhibition because she viewed this choice at 6 years old as her one chance to define her career path. When we found this hiccup, this was a lesson to all. Passion changes, passion grows, and passion can extend to many areas and people in our lives.
As you support your child’s passions this next week and in the future here’s a reminder to share yours too. Share what drives you, share what’s hard, share how your passions define who you are. If you’ve forgotten a few passions during the busyness of life or if you are looking for a new passion to inspire simply get passionately curious. The journey is fire!