Tuesday, November 20, 2007

What do you want to be when you grow up? A Blacksmith!

Tonight at dinner Chase asks me if Brianna 'has' to go to college soon. I said "well, she doesn't "have" to go to college, but I think she'd like to become a chef and I think she'd like to go to a cooking school. She has mentioned more than once that she'd like to go back to Rhode Island and go to Johnson & Wales. I guess that would be nice because of all our friends and family already there that could help her out during that first time away.

Then Chase says "Would I have to go to college?" I said well that depends on what you want to do for a job when you grow up. Some professions require a college degree and other don't. So do you have any idea what you'd like to do for a job?

"I want to be a blacksmith." Ok that one stumped me. I said "really - a blacksmith?" and he added "or someone who works with wood...you know makes things with wood."

He was so matter of fact. I guess the cool thing about his interest at the moment is that I can find ways to assist him with outlets for his interest. We actually have plans for a bat house that we got after the Nixon Park Nature Center class about bats. John is really good at building things. It quite amazes me actually. How he can even build things without a pattern and just figure them out. I think Chase is much like his Dad in this respect.

Blacksmith...huh. I wonder if you can make a living as a blacksmith? I was just reading this book about old "Yankee" homesteading skills and blacksmithing was in there. I kind of glossed over that thinking "yeah that's not something I could do" and moved on to the gardening and animal section. Now that I think about it, whenever we go anywhere that has a blacksmith - like recently at Mystic Seaport - Chase always spends a lot of time observing. I'll bet as he gets older I can find someone associated with the CSA to teach him... it is definately one of those dying arts....

Wow - unschooling really can open your eyes to possibilties that you never considered before.

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