I haven't read the book Last Child in the Woods by Richard Louv, but I probably will. From what I know, his thesis is that American children today live insulated lives, too protected from the world, and that this is bad for their development in just about every way possible.
As a person who grew up "in the woods" more or less, I resonate with Louv's message. As a parent of a child in the present day, I understand how the problem came to be. We are immersed in an overwhelming sea of media-created fear -- of predators, crime, cars, drugs, STDs, and anything resembling a sharp object.
That's why I found Gever Tulley's talk at the 2007 TED University pretty inspiring, and hope a lot of parents get a chance to see it as well. In addition to being a Silicon Valley programmer, Tulley runs a summer camp called the Tinkering School, where kids can get their hands on power tools as they take apart and put together pieces of technology. Which may seem a bit dissimilar to the idea of a child "in the woods," but don't let the varied settings confuse the issue.
TED (which stands for Technology, Entertainment, Design) is a conference that began in 1984. It brings together "thinkers and doers" who each give one 18-minute talk.
See Tully's talk on the TED conference site
Tuesday, January 8, 2008
Five Dangerous Things You Should Let Your Kids Do
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
1 comment:
Well, it isn't exactly in line with your premise here, but the graphic just got me about "playing with fire" - one of my colleagues, the art teacher at school, told me that we should teach "like our hair is on fire", I guess meaning we should be passionate and not tied to safe and easy methods of teaching, bur rather use methods that inspire our students to explore and try different things, especially in the arts as we are.
Post a Comment