"Sense of wonder." is the start of a real education.

D.H. Lawrence once said that "Water is H2O, hydrogen two parts, oxygen one, but there is also a third thing that makes it water and nobody knows what it is." 

It is magic, the kind that can only be found in nature, life, and human possibilities once we are open to them. 

The kind of education I have in mind takes young people out of the classroom to encounter the mystery of the third thing. 

In that encounter they discover what Rachel Carson once called the "sense of wonder." 

And that is the start of a real education.                            

Center for Ecoliteracy zenobia@ecoliteracy.org via cp20.com