Photoblog Hong Kong: Geological museum

Here we are, being educated outside school, at the University of Hong Kong, Geological Museum.

We look excited, don't we?


You'd never guess from these pictures, but we are excited by geology. We find it fascinating. Looking at rocks absorbs us for hours and hours while we wonder how, and why, and when, and how old?


And then there are the dinosaurs. We feel the thundering of their ancient feet. They danced their echoes in the rock.


We were here a good few hours, in this museum. I know it is a luxury we have, taking hours to be attentive to one or two moments.


It might be a sentimental thought that I hold, but I think my children learn something of everything by living in this way. It is a rich world we live in, and we're able to take the time to look at it in minute detail.

Especially with geology.


Rocks wink at us, and tell us quiet stories of life slowing, heating, changing, growing old. Mountains growl, and shift their giant bulk. Ochres speak to us by colour on canvas. Caves beckon and whisper. Sand tickles our inquiring worming fingers, and tempts our toes.

When the day goes well, this way of learning is indistinguishable from living. We breathe silica, feldspar, volcanic tuff.

Squirrel found these brachiopods, Stringocephalus obesus Grabau, slipped all the way from a shallow shell bed in Guangxi, particularly fascinating.


I suppose it's a very different learning experience from school.


I can't say that living in this way hasn't taken a toll sometimes, in our friendships and relationships.


I could explore the differences between many ways of learning; how those differences have sometimes led to conflicts and problems. But this blog perhaps does that, often. So I will just say what the pictures probably don't say, and that is, home education can at times be a very gentle and satisfying way of living in the world.