324. The Practice of Active Wondering

Brave Writer

Julie Bogart and Melissa Wiley

Education For Kids, Education, Kids & Family, Books, Arts

4.8 • 927 Ratings

🗓️ 28 January 2026

⏱️ 31 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

What happens when we slow down long enough to really wonder? In this episode, we explore the difference between rabbit trails and rabbit holes—and why both matter in learning and in life. From telephone poles and faded signs to classic children’s literature and everyday neighborhood mysteries, we reflect on how curiosity deepens when we resist quick answers and allow questions to linger. We talk about active wondering, mental stillness, and the surprising richness of slow learning in a fast world. Join us as we rediscover how noticing, wondering, and waiting can transform ordinary moments into meaningful education.

Resources:

Listen to our episode on Rabbit Holes and Rabbit Trails
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Start a free trial of CTCmath.com to try the math program that’s sure to grab and keep your child’s attention
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Transcript

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0:50.1	Hello, friends. Welcome to the Brave Writer podcast. I'm Melissa Wiley. Julie is away this week at a conference in California, and she asked me to do a solo episode. And I thought it might be fun to revisit a topic that Julie and I chatted about on this podcast a couple of years ago. One of my favorite things about the whole
1:12.7	homeschooling experience, rabbit trails and rabbit holes. Now, I'm not going to repeat what we
1:19.7	discussed in that episode. If you want to listen to it, I'll link it in the show notes so that you
1:23.5	can revisit that conversation. But today I'm going to take that idea and give an example or give a window into how this
1:34.0	method of learning together as a family has really enriched my kids' lives and my life.
1:40.3	And can be a very useful way to think about education and experience in your own family education
1:48.9	adventures. Okay, I will start by explaining what I mean about the difference between rabbit trails
1:55.5	and rabbit holes. So you can think of an educational rabbit trail as making a lot of connections and letting
2:02.9	topic pull you to new topic to new topic. Picture a rabbit in a meadow and it's nibbling
2:08.9	some clover and then it catches the scent of another tasty plant a little way away and it
2:14.8	hops over to that and then it catches a new scent and it hops
2:18.3	over to that one and it's consuming some nourishment at each of these hops along the way
2:24.5	and one tasty treat leads to the next. That's following a rabbit trail. Julie talks about it
	...

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