The Knowledge Tree

The other night, Pepper, was saying that she had a lot of homework. Then she paused and looked at me and said, “Mommy, I see that you have a lot of free time lately.” Before I could answer it, she went on, “Ah … you are enjoying the fruits now.” I smiled and said, “Wow! You still remembered what mommy said to you years ago?”

Yes. Yes. I recalled. I love using analogies when come to teach my kids about life lessons and values that I believe in. When they were little, they often questioned me on why do they need to go to school. Really, why should they?

As I looked outside at our orange tree, I began my preaching, "It is like planting a fruit tree, an orange tree..."

First, you plant the seed ...
We feed the soil with nutrient and water, hoping someday the seed will turn into a beautiful tree and perhaps someday would bear fruits that we can enjoy for a lifetime.Just like the seed, we go to Kindergarten to learn hoping someday all of the knowledge that we have acquired could bring us fruits that we can enjoy through our lives.

--courtesy of waldeneffect.org

The seed begins to sprout ...

With time and much time, the seed begins to sprout and as it sprouts, our knowledge grows. While the sprout is taking its own time to grow some more, we need to take our time to grow our knowledge as well. That is why it is important that we attend the elementary school.

--coutesy of shutterstock.com

The sprout has turned into a small tree...

As you can see the weak branches and fresh green leaves have rooted from the sprout though not strong enough and ready to have oranges yet. Even though we feel that we have learned a lot through Kindergarten and Elementary years, we still need to go to middle school, so our knowledge can have stronger branches and more leaves as well.

--courtesy of schleysbonsai.com

 

The small tree has stretched taller ...

This time the branches, and trunk are much stronger and the leaves are greener.Just like this taller tree, our knowledge has stretched significantly but are we ready to quit school? Well ... look at the tree, does it have oranges yet? -- What do you say ... high school?

--courtesy of plants4presents.co.uk

The taller tree has expanded into mature tree...
We are almost there! Indeed, we have come a long way but not quite there yet, very close! The tree has developed into a beautiful mature tree but its fruits are still shy away--As we are getting ready for college, the tree is preparing itself to bear some fruits. College, here we come!

--courtesy of lancaster.unl.edu

Beautiful and bountiful orange tree...

The tree has finally expanded into a beautiful and bountiful orange tree.The fruit tree has produced sweet and tangy oranges. Now it is time for us to enjoy them. This is the moment that we have been waiting for … we are done! Time to throw a party.

--courtesy of tree-pictures.com

Just like we never stop watering and feeding our orange tree, we should never stop learning. --Never stop learning. If you learn one new thing every day, you will overcome 99% over your competition.
(Joe Carlozo) (Cited from http://www.goal-setting-help.com/learning-quotes.html)

I recognized that both Steve Jobs and Bill Gate didn't quite finished their colleges. However,I couldn't bring myself to tell my kids,  "Hey kids, don't worry about those degrees,  in fact you don't even need to go thru all of the schooling .. Just aim high!"-- I supposed I could.  What do you think?

Until next stop,
Journey of Life