Chasing Rabbit Trails

We're two days into our home education experience and so far all parties seem happy, satisfied, and are cooperative--which is miraculous in and of itself considering that my son and I both share the same strong personalities.  Somehow, I think learning together is actually good for us.  Because he's so much like me, I "get" him.  What interests me, appears to be interesting to him as well.  For maybe the first time ever, we're actually bonding over shared interests and I couldn't be more relieved.  Keeping Boy Wonder's attention might not be as hard as I thought. 

Yesterday I noted that it can be quite easy to breeze through curriculum with one student if the teacher and student are literally and figuratively on the same page.  Today, I discovered that it's also easy to chase a rabbit trail with one child.  This isn't necessarily a bad thing, but you never know where a lesson is going to end up if you take trails. For example, our enrichment study of the Radetzky March, by Johann Strauss, turned into a 30 minutes discussion of the 2004 and 2011 Tsunamis. 

How did we get from Vienna's favorite New Year's tune (in which the audience actually claps) to watching YouTube videos of Tsunamis waves in Thailand and Japan?  It's Wikipedia's fault.  And mommy's fault for not editing Wikipedia.  So, my son might not remember too much about Field Marshall Radetzsky, but he now knows the warning signs that a tsunamis is coming (and hey, according to Nat Geo, a girl from Britain saved her vacationing family in 2004 when she remembered geology class's reference to receding waves!)

Oh well. The point of studying music is for enrichment.  And we were certainly enriched today as we talked about water displacement, earthquakes, and 130 foot waves!  For your own personal enrichment, check out the YouTube video below of the Radetzky March.  My son might not have understood the significance of the audience's clapping, but it's pretty cool to see the audience participation in what has become the traditional last song of every New Year's concert in Vienna--except for 2005, as they were showing respect to those lost in the Tsunamis (hence the rabbit trail).  And just so you know, I personally enjoyed this video, because attending a concert at the Musikverein in Vienna is on my bucket list!  What a fun way this would be to start a new year.