Beyond suffering

A few weeks ago I wrote about how kids are oriented toward fun, and how adults tend to be wary of this orientation.  It’s one thing to enjoy one’s self, we think, but too much attention on fun seems like it might suggest that a child isn’t motivated to do the hard stuff in life [...]

Top billing

Parents of kids who struggle with or resist traditional academic subjects (math, reading, writing, etc.) are usually encouraged to concentrate all their energy and resources on helping kids with those areas.  It makes sense, but it also doesn’t usually work.  It often has the opposite effect of what we intend.  With a few exceptions, kids [...]

More on slowness

Slowness in young people tends to worry adults.  We often take it as a sign of disorder or dysfunction; something kids need help with.*  Sometimes our help is helpful – sometimes kids really do want us to help them do things more quickly. But other times, they’re just plain taking their time.  Or they aren’t [...]

Screen time

Many kids often opt for screen time, when left to their own devices.  (No pun intended, really.)  The adult reaction is predictable – we react the way adults usually react when kids do things we don’t want them to.  We get right to work on getting them to stop doing it, on our terms.  ”Limit [...]

Scratch

I just moved into a house with an old steam heating system.  I have to add water with a manual feed valve every so often to keep the boiler running properly.  Last Saturday, I couldn’t get the water feed to open. I wanted to avoid a costly weekend service call for something that probably wasn’t [...]

Visual Robinson

Thanks to everyone who’s sent me a link to the RSA Animate rendering of Ken Robinson’s Changing Paradigms talk.  It has similar content to the well-known talk he gave at the 2006 TED conference, and the animated version gives the material even more depth and greater accessibility, in my opinion.  It’s also a 12-minute version [...]

Elizabeth Gilbert on creativity

Elizabeth Gilbert makes a strong case for depersonalizing genius and creativity (see link below).  If we were to return to older ways of referring to genius as something one has as opposed to is, we make room for error as well as fuller success, thus freeing ourselves up a bit.  (More than a bit, probably.) [...]

David Shenk’s new book

I’m trying to create a practice of not writing about books until I finish reading them, but I’m not particularly patient when it comes to this sort of thing, so I thought I’d just mention that I’m reading The Genius in All of Us, by David Shenk, in case it sounds interesting to anyone else. [...]

Auto-focus

I love my digital camera.  Honestly, it takes better pictures than I deserve to be taking with my limited photographic skill. The thing I can’t stand about it is that it’s designed to decide by itself what to focus on.  It’s supposed to be smart this way.  Even if something’s not in the middle of [...]

Next time you’re tempted to say “stop doodling and pay attention”…

Yet another suggestion that things are not always as they seem. This reminds me of how many folks I’ve heard say that they can only focus on what someone’s saying if they don’t make eye contact, though we tend to assume it’s the opposite. Take a look at this summary of a study (published earlier this [...]