Hi everyone. I wanted to take a moment to remember Jane Goodall. Although I knew about her when I was a child, it wasn’t until a fellow member of the Y-HOP homeschool group told us about her Roots & Shoots program to introduce children to environmental stewardship that I really started paying attention.
Needless to say, my animal-loving household took to the program like ducks to water and we had a few fun years engaging in various projects and learning about our planet. After a time, we moved on to other interests, but the lessons they learned then stick with them even now.
For me, I became fascinated with Jane Goodall, her life, and her mission to learning and teaching others. She inspires me to look beyond the surface of things. She helps me to remember that there are many ways to achieve a goal.
She was told that she was studying chimpanzees “all wrong” because she named them, treated them as individuals and not “beasts” all the while being open to learning from them, not forcing them into boxes created by the experts. She treated the chimps, and later other primates, with compassion and patience. And because of her willingness to observe without an agenda, she discovered so many things that the “experts” would have dismissed as fantasy.
I realize that I unconsciously borrowed a bit of her style while teaching my kids. Regardless of their challenges, I spent a lot of time studying them to see what made them tick and how they approached the world and then I built their lessons around their style to the best of my ability. Now that they are transitioning into adulthood, they often express gratitude that I let them be themselves and figure out what works best for them to cope in this world.
So, in memory of Jane Goodall, let’s not fall into the trap of believing academia when they say things MUST be done in only one certain way. Let’s allow ourselves and our children to use our unique views of the world to accomplish great things in the most natural way possible.
