50 Dangerous Things (you should let your children do)

Gever Tulley (and Julie Spiegler) are at it again.  (I wrote about Gever's TED talk a while back.)  They just released the book 50 Dangerous Things (you should let your children do).  Yes I did pre order it.

CC Image courtesy of  eurleif on Flickr

It mostly talks about how to inspire creativity and competence in children.  It has 50 projects, skills, experiences for your children.  Most of them would make a wet nurse panic.  Superglue your fingers together?  Play with fire? Perform on the street?  Is he nuts?  In the book he lists good solid reasons for trying each thing.  Gever suggests supergluing your fingertips to "better appreciate our usual physical condition".  It forces us to be creative to accomplish our everyday tasks.

How do we build competence in children?  We do it by giving children opportunities to distinguish that which is truly dangerous from what merely contains an element of risk; we introduce them to risk through measured, supervised exposure; we teach them how to explore safely, and set them on a path to exploring on their own.

I have talked about this before.  Safety comes from understanding and managing risk not avoiding it.

You are a superhero; you are endowed with the power of supervision.  Use it wisely, and judiciously, and not only will your child surprise you, you may surprise yourself.

I do like the way that the book is laid out.  At first I wanted a digital copy (because that is how I read all my books now).  I am glad that I sprung for the real, hold in your hand, dog ear the pages, smell the book binding glue version.  Every project comes with a field notes page and a spot to put a completion date.  It is actually more of a workbook than a reference (because experiences are not just something you should read about.)

If you have children and you actually want them to accomplish things in life read this book - or watch the TED talk - or let them play with pocket knives.  Just let them do things.  It will be okay.

I am going home to lick a 9 volt battery - and find one for my son too.

Pocket Knives Make Excellent Gifts

Wow. 

Gerver Tulley's program is everything I want to do - only I never realized I wanted to do it.   You all know that I tinker - I just don't share or teach it very well.  That is it - I am going to open up my garage (and my toys) to the neighborhood kids - right RIGHT now.   Um  maybe not - it is 11 PM.  

I bet you that this format would work in my math classes.......... two and two are adding up and I am getting a parabola!!!

He also did a neat Facebook question and answer session.  His answers are worth reading.

All the best, and remember: pocket knives make excellent gifts,

- Gever Tulley

You Betcha I want to say Yes!

Dan Meyer of dy/dan fame picked up one of my rants a while back.  I just found it now.  Here is what he said:

Just Say Yes?

Gary Ball, edtechnophile:

I want to be a Yes Man. I want to be a Lets Find a Way Man. I want my job to be finding ways to say yes to educators requests. Educator: "Can I do/have (insert random skill/technology/tool)?" Me: "Heck ya - that sounds awesome. I am not sure how but lets find a way!"

Mark Weston, Dell's educational strategist:

Asking the question, "Does technology improve student learning?" is the wrong question. The question should be, "Does technology support the practices that improve student learning?"

After reading the comments and thinking about it for a while I wrote this reply.  I figured that I should share it here.

Dean Shareski has the essence of what the post was actually about. You are quoting me a bit out of context.

No division could afford to keep me (or any good teacher) fully stocked up with all of my (our) whims. There has to be some sort of system of checks and balances to see that funds are truly spent on technology that supports students learning (and the practices that improve it). However I was not ranting about whims. Any conversation that starts out with a NO probably won’t get far. I want to be heard out and considered before I get a no (and please leave out the capital letters and the exclamation mark).

Innovation and creativity (which we need more of) sometimes involves picking up something new and asking “What can I do with this?” It involves playing with the new shiny thing and finding interesting ways it is useful.

I do agree that we need to have the conversation about how things will improve or support student learning. Anything that does not in some way improve student learning is money wasted. I don’t advocate blindly saying yes. I do advocate for innovation, creativity, and the conversations that should come with them.

As I have said before - I enjoy when people disagree with me or challenge me (as long as they do it intelligently.)

Related Posts

I Want a New Job

The Saddest Sound in the World

Buddhist Fisherman

How does a Buddhist fishermen justify his job? "They are saving the
fish from drowning, unfortunately it happens to die in the process."
Amy Tan.

There has been a lot of buzz going around the blogoshere about about
how our educational system is killing creativity. In the act of giving
the students an education their creativity just happens to die in the
process. (Well not always but way to often.) Damn, we are Buddhist
fishermen.

** Update **

This post was made from my iPod Touch so I was unable to add links. One of the articles I was talking about was this one from Ewan McIntosh.