A lot of times when kids first leave school, they spend a few months playing video games. That’s all. Just video games. And the parents freak out. Read more
At some point I realized the kids I liked most are the hard-core gamers. I encouraged my kids to carve out time each day to take gaming seriously. One of the things I’m most proud of in our homeschooling is that my kids play League of Legends. This game is similar to chess if you played it while trying to not get shot by your opponent’s teammates. In a world where hard-core gamers are faster learners and have stronger brains, League caters to the cream of the crop. Read more
As my kids got to be around age 10 I phased out my play-all-day approach to homeschooling. Instead, I considered anything homeschooling as long as there was a goal and a daily plan for meeting that goal. Playing string instruments fit neatly into this scheme, but here’s another thing that fit: esports. Read more
Do you know the broken windows theory? Two social scientists found that if you have a neighborhood with one broken window, the whole neighborhood starts going downhill. You have to take care of little stuff to keep the big stuff on track. Read more
When we started homeschooling I realized that the real issue with self-directed learning is kids choose video games. Especially boys. And that scares parents. Read more
We have been traveling all over the place this summer, mostly for cello: Montana, Chicago, Claremont, Chicago, Santa Monica, Aspen. I want to show you pictures of everything. But it would mostly look like kids playing video game in a lot of airports. Or me losing my mind. Read more
This is a guest post from Sheila Baranoski. She writes a blog about unschooling and she writes fiction for kids.
“Easy for you to say unschooling works,” someone told me. “Your kids are interested in academic things. You don’t know my kids. If I unschooled, all my kids would do is play video games all day.” Read more
There are some kids who are completely engaged in a widely revered activity and they receive accolades at each turn. Most kids are not those kids. When it comes to self-directed learning, a wide majority of boys—and a good number of girls—will put themselves in front of a video game. Read more
Remember when the biggest issue of kids going online was that someone would find out where they live and kidnap them? When my kids first started using Minecraft message boards, I told them a million times, “Don’t tell people where you live.” Read more
There’s big talk about mindfulness. Maybe because is the era of distraction because we are struggling with multitasking, partial attention, and information overload. But probably because we know there are enormous benefits to mindfulness, but achieving mindfulness is something that does not seem to be natural to us. Time magazine has documented the struggle. Read more