J ust the other day a friend and I swapped philosophies on education and found that we share a resolve that is quite counter-cultural: we aren’t in a hurry to read younger, achieve faster, sit still longer, and know all the things. The path we’re on is slower, with room for soaking up beauty and wonder, and we sure hope this choice keeps the love of learning and adventure alive longer. The longer I walk this slower-paced trail, the more sure of it I am. The first two students in my one-room-school-house were boys who needed to be outside, to run and get muddy, to touch everything and do everything fast and loud. Culture poked at me from every corner with stabs of guilt and fear in those first years. My students weren’t reading at 6, they weren’t ahead of the academic curve, and oh goodness we just might fail at this whole thing. It took some time to shake off the cultural expectations of each scheduled school year. I knew I both wanted to and had freedom to teach d