“Toddlers ask many questions, and so do school children – until about grade three.  By that time many of them have learned an unfortunate fact, that in school, it can be more important for self-protection to hide one’s ignorance about a subject than to learn more about it, regardless of one’s curiosity.”    – Jan Hunt

I read this quotation yesterday.  It made me think, and I’m still thinking about it both from the perspective of raising my kids and teaching bushcraft courses.

My kids are still young enough where being cool and fitting in isn’t big concern, but I can see it coming down the road.  Until then I’ll be thinking of ways to make curiosity cool and complacency lame.

At Jack Mountain I don’t think it’s an issue.  Learning bushcraft gives adults the opportunity to be kids again.  It’s OK to get things wrong, and we emphasize learning as a journey, not a destination.  Because it’s a multi-disciplinary field it’s impossible to learn bushcraft in the way you can learn a specific knot, or knife technique.  There’s always more to learn, and curiosity is what keeps you learning.