Opportunistic Unschooling

Today we went for a trip to some caves. It was magical and wonderful and was supposed to be my effort to quietly fill them with some fascinating geography and it worked. On the drive home we passed a truffle farm. I’ve never tasted truffles as my budget and tastes swerve me away from the fancy things in life. We did decide to stop in and see what it was.

As we got out of the car a ,am came rushing round asking “Hi! do you have kids? Great bring them round we’ve just brought the calves in.” He rushed off and we followed to see four young calves just delivered by truck to the farm and the boys loved it. He told us how he owned the farm, but left a manager to run it, only sometimes taking out a truffle hunting dog, several of which were barking their heads off to get his attention. I asked if these were the truffle dogs he said, “yeah , come on I’ll show you.”

He grabbed a beautiful brown lab and we ran off into the nearby fields full of trees where he showed us how the dog finds the truffles. My children got to smell and hold the ones he dug up and decided they smelled like beetroot. He laughed as most children say that apparently. The boys likened it to treasure hunting since these little fungi go for around $3000 a kilogram so they were holding a tiny nugget worth about $70 each (which we gave back).

When he took us back to the little shop (it is a business after all) we got to smell the bagged ones, see preserved parts of the truffle roots and they answered our questions. I came home with a jar of truffle salt.

We hadn’t planned to stop here. We hadn’t decided in advance what we might learn or researched the topic in advance to get the most out of it. I didn’t send them round with a clipboard full of questions like they did when I was in school. We didn’t write it up afterwards. It was pure, adhoc, delight based learning and it worked. My children remembered the experience, the details, the answers to their question, the feel and smell and taste of the product and the lovely people we met. My youngest was so excited by the experience he asked if he could work there one day.

There can be a place for curriculum and structure, a place for organised excursions, but wouldn’t it be wonderful if more learning was done on this basis?