The old saying goes: All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy. Perhaps that’s where the idea of summer vacation came about.
It’s good to stop every once in a while to let yourself unwind. And after nine months of sitting in a stiff chair and listening to an adult talk at the front of a classroom while the sun teasingly shines outside, kids deserve a long break – preferably out of doors.
But that doesn’t mean that the act of learning stops. In fact, gaining knowledge about the world – and life in general – frequently happens outside the classroom. It’s one thing to read about or see a photograph of the Sistine Chapel in a book; to be in the presence of a centuries-old edifice and have your breath taken away by the awe-inspiring work of a celebrated master painter – that is another thing entirely.
It’s the same when you see something like the Egyptian pyramids and come to the slow realization that, before there were bulldozers or cranes or cars, people could drag massive slabs of stone and build a structure standing hundreds of feet high that continues to boggle the mind of even the modern man. Beholding such a sight just once can create an everlasting impression on a child and open doors for them to numerous other worlds, new ideas or times long past.
I myself can attest that my continuing fascination with plate tectonics emerged out of one summer is family vacation to Yellowstone Park in the northwestern United States, when I encountered the famous Old Faithful geyser. Watching sudden bursts of hot water shoot high up into the air seemingly out of nowhere led to a curiosity with geological thermodynamic phenomena, until even now, as an adult, I find myself immediately drawn to anything relating to activity beneath the earth’s crust. It was also during that trip that I began to appreciate and learned to respect the natural habitats of wild animals. (That was also the summer when I was told that buffalos charged at the color red!)
The wonderful thing about summer vacation is that kids are fooled into thinking they are free from needing to use their brains, while in actuality they continue to learn through hands-on experience. So this summer, whether you stay in China or travel elsewhere, be prepared to learn something new or witness something inspiring.
