My second daughter loves to create things. She likes to create dolls out of anything from beads to a few sticks; and she can do it with a little glue and her imagination.

She also loves to sew and is always wanting me to sew things for her. A few days ago I wondered why I hadn’t just taught her to use the sewing machine so she could do it herself.

And so I did.

With a quick demonstration and a little guidance she was sewing up a pillowcase. The next night we made a bag for her ballet shoes. And the next day she showed me a page full of sketches of a dress she wanted to make. I had to tell her then that she had maxed out my sewing skills at the bag.

She was so excited about everything she could do and thanked me over and over for teaching her to sew. There were no limits, in her mind, to what she could do now.

I wondered why hadn’t I taught her to use the machine before now? I also wonder why I often devalue this type of education. Is learning to sew not as important as learning about the Ancient Greeks? One could argue that it is far more important.

I’ve been doing some reading. I’ve been reading about learning and about discipline, and the subjects have complimented each other well.

John Holt reminds me that not all learning happens in a traditional setting in a traditional way. In fact, very little learning, learning that sticks anyway, takes place in this way.

And I’ve been thinking about the things I learned that stuck. And about how, when I walked out of the classroom setting my education didn’t stop, neither did it begin there.

More than anything this re-reading of How Children Learn has relaxed me. It’s making me take a step back and look at the big picture, this life-long learning that takes place for everyone. There’s no starting or stopping point. There’s not a limited amount of time in which to learn a set number of things.

The result of this, at this moment, is I’m saying yes more. Yes to sewing, yes to letting Milo crack the eggs for breakfast in the morning (Why did I always say no before?), yes to playing with the magnet kit even though that wasn’t in the lesson plan for today.

Think, for a moment, about something you have learned as an adult, what was it and how did you do it? By watching, by reading, by doing? And how long will you remember it?