The Great Drama Unfolding Around Us: A Celebration of Different Ways of Learning

After a day of meetings and before one more evening meeting, I scooted out after dinner to kayak at low tide. The sun was setting and the clouds were pink in the western sky. The loons were making their eerie calls. I slid my kayak into the ocean and slowly paddled, staring into the shallow water to watch the drama unfolding below me. Crabs were battling, frilly worms were swaying like anemones, fish were schooling around me, tiny sea stars were clinging to little rocks and giant sea stars to big ones. Seals were bobbing their heads to look at me as I looked at them, both of us curious.

What a world we live in! What mysteries unveil themselves when we choose to observe!

In a previous blog post, I wrote about observing tadpoles and knowing that at some point I’d look them up and learn more about them from others’ knowledge, but for now I was enjoying learning by watching. I told my husband about my desire to learn who was who among the tadpoles and so for my birthday he created a book for me called “Zoe’s Wogs.” He printed photos and charts from his research on the Internet and included his own drawings to make identification even easier. Now I can identify which tadpoles will turn into which frogs. I love it, and I love that I now have two means of knowing – my own experiences and observations and the accumulated knowledge of many ethologists and biologists.

So this blog post is my praise for learning, both experiential and book learning. How lucky we all are that we can learn something new each day.

As I’ve said before, please go outside. Take a look. Notice what you learn. And maybe read a book, too. What did you learn today?

Cheers,

Zoe Weil
Author of Most Good, Least Harm and Above All, Be Kind

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