On recreational learning, and other tangential thoughts

Excuse me for how unorganized my thoughts are for this post in particular. First, watch this video on recreational learning from YouTube channel VSauce's Michael Stevens.

Michael Stevens elaborates on many things that I agree with. Recreational learning is also probably my favoritine style of learning. I think of all the types of learning, it caters most to the student. It gives the students the controls and simulates best what the student needs to do in order to be a lifelong learner well after compulsory education is finished. It also leads me to ask -- what do we call non-recreational learning? Compulsory learning? --Is it just me, but does the word "compulsory" inherently carry with it some kind of dread? We need to change our culture of education such that compulsory learning is as dreadless as recreational learning.

I imagine compulsory education was created to fill in the spaces of time between bouts of recreational learning. If a child is not constantly asked or encouraged to ask questions, one can easily imagine that child's mind wasting away. It would not be entirely teh fault of the child either. As adults, we make no time for all their questions. Especially when they are very young, most children are just overflowing with questions and if we were to attempt to do all of them justice, we would never get their shoes on or get one step out the door. We don't even know if they're listen to the answers in the first place. A favorite stand-up comediant of mine, Louis CK, has a great bit about parenting and a conversation with his daughter that unravels into existential quandries because she continues to ask him, "Why?" From his account, it seemed like asking "Why?" was jst a game for her to see her dad struggle to come up with an answer. That's not anywhere near what we meant to do -- encourage a joy of (recreational) learning.

I'm not close to having my own kids just yet, but when I do, I think i will try to turn the question back onto them and encourage them how to use their imagination to create answers to the questions they thought of. Also I think I would ask, "Who they think would know the answer and why? And if they didn't know, what might you do to figure it out?"

...And that's all I have to say about that. For now. Please let me know your thoughts on recreational learning (and other tangential thoughts!) in the comments section below.