[andrewce]

I spent my summers (as a child) doing more or less what you've described.

Looking back, my parents did a few major things that helped make this a successful venture (or so I like to think, given my belief that I can do the things you've outlined in your last paragraph):

1) So long as we were learning, they didn't mind too much what (though it was always grounds for discussion and debate). If I wanted to read about dinosaurs, that was valued just as much as reading about history or politics or engineering.

2) If we were struggling, they'd start by giving me a small hint, then a slightly larger one, and so on until I either understood it or asked for a demonstration. Nothing wrong with the latter, as there are a lot of things that aren't immediately intuitive, but better to build intuition first.

This is an extended way of me saying "I think what you are planning to do is fantastic, and would like to offer these two things I remember from my experience."

[tommynazareth]

I also think it is a fantastic plan.

I like you're first point. If a teacher is resourceful enough, than any topic is worth exploring and there is no limit to the breadth or depth of the exploration. Also, any learning activity can be a valuable experience in developing transferable skills.

[edanm]

Steve Jobs made a similar point in a speech to a graduating university class. He mentioned how he popped into classes just because they looked interesting, even if they weren't part of his curriculum, and said it's a great thing to do. He gave one example: he went to a class on typography just cause it sounded fun. As he put it, the only reason Macs have decent typography is because of what he learned in that class.

[qohen]

FYI, it was actually a calligraphy class.

From the transcript of Jobs' speech (http://news.stanford.edu/news/2005/june15/jobs-061505.html ):

"Reed College at that time offered perhaps the best calligraphy instruction in the country. Throughout the campus every poster, every label on every drawer, was beautifully hand calligraphed. Because I had dropped out and didn't have to take the normal classes, I decided to take a calligraphy class to learn how to do this. I learned about serif and san serif typefaces, about varying the amount of space between different letter combinations, about what makes great typography great. It was beautiful, historical, artistically subtle in a way that science can't capture, and I found it fascinating.

None of this had even a hope of any practical application in my life. But ten years later, when we were designing the first Macintosh computer, it all came back to me. And we designed it all into the Mac. It was the first computer with beautiful typography. If I had never dropped in on that single course in college, the Mac would have never had multiple typefaces or proportionally spaced fonts. And since Windows just copied the Mac, its likely that no personal computer would have them. If I had never dropped out, I would have never dropped in on this calligraphy class, and personal computers might not have the wonderful typography that they do. Of course it was impossible to connect the dots looking forward when I was in college. But it was very, very clear looking backwards ten years later."