About to die from cancer, a ten year old boy does all he can to make his dream of catching a rare blue butterfly in the forest of South America come true!
To tell you whether or not he succeeds would spoil the story.
Instead, I’ll record the the things we discussed after watching the movie.
- do doctors always *know*?
- what do we know about death? how would YOU approach death? what message did this movie give us about death? from our perspective, what was missing?
- is there magic? can a necklace give power? what about face paint? why or why not? how?
- what examples of learning were in the movie?
- did the boy respect his teacher (the entomologist)? cite some examples to back up your answer!
- what did the movie tell us about relationships? relationships between men and women, boys and girls, teachers and learners, parents and children?
- what examples in the movie were there of working together as a team? did you catch the irony in the swamp scene? (the older ones did!!)
*plus mother pointed out the boys’ accurate use of the word “symbiosis”, which the children had all missed* - is everything, everybody god? is there a little bit of god in everyone?
- would you know how to survive in the jungle? what would you need to learn before taking a visit there?
- what is fear? how was it overcome in the movie? can you think of any other ways that weren’t mentioned in the movie? what is courage?
- what are miracles?
Later that day we were discussing a book we had just finished.
“What did you think of it?” I enquired.
“It was good,” one ventured.
“I liked it,” another added.
Given that discussions like the one noted above are the norm around our house, you’d have thought they might have come up with more than that!
And they knew they were supposed to;-)
K10 saved the day with, “Well it inspired me to have a faith that I’d give up everything for.” They all grinned triumphantly and I dropped the discussion!
Even later in the day I mentioned I’d watched a documentary about the history of Robin Hood the previous evening. They were all ears. “What was it like? What did you learn? Would it be suitable for us to see?”
“I liked it,” I confessed.
After a thoughtful-looking moment I elaborated: “It was good.”
More grins. Slightly exasperated ones, but grins nonetheless.
“Well, does that make you want to see it? Does that tell you anything about it? Whether it would serve your purposes for watching it?”
It was a lesson that spanned the whole day. It’s hard to say when the lesson began, or if it has even ended.
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