“I feel like someone’s installed a sun roof in my brain,” I told my wife at one point this weekend. Not bad for someone who spent all but a couple of 92 straight hours inside a Dallas-area hotel.
At the beginning of the summer, I wrote of how I was casting about for a conference to attend in lieu of the local or national SCBWI gatherings. Without setting out to do so, I found just what I needed in an unexpected place — an event that had hardly a thing (overtly) to do with children’s writing, publishing or literature. Even better, I didn’t have to leave the rest of Team Barton behind in order to get it.
From Thursday afternoon through yesterday morning, our entire family soaked up fun, friendship and enlightenment at the Rethinking Education conference:
At the heart of Rethinking Education is the awareness that children are supremely capable of absorbing and using knowledge from our complex world.
There is no need for arbitrary structure in education; the use of coercion, rewards or other behavior modification techniques as motivation are counterproductive.
With freedom, respect and nurturing support, children have a powerful drive to self-direct their own learning; the result being children who direct their own education… indeed, their own futures.
I really wasn’t sure what to expect from Rethinking Education. This was the conference’s 10th year, but it was the first time we attended, and we did so out of a sense that it could provide us with some new strategies for making this not-sending-the-kids-to-school thing work as well as possible. It did that, and how, but I can’t imagine any adult coming away from Rethinking Education without also considering how its lessons apply to their careers and the rest of their lives.
The various speakers name-checked folks ranging from Mike Milken to Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, likely sending me off on research tangents for quite some time to come. Most of the sessions I attended were led by Naomi Aldort (“Boredom is a wonderful, enriching experience”) and David Albert (“Ignorance is the great tool of the homeschooling parent”), both of whom I urge all parents to learn more about.
The single most valuable idea I took away from the conference was the importance of recognizing our unquestioned assumptions about, well, everything. Whether it’s how we think our families should operate or what elements we believe a children’s book manuscript should have, why do we do things the “right,” “proper,” accepted, traditional way? Which of our beliefs shouldn’t we examine? Which ones are so ingrained that we don’t even think of them as beliefs, but simply as the way things are and ought to be? How can we be sure that there’s not a better way?
So, were there any overt connections to writing for children? You bet. Even while I was taking notes during the sessions, new story ideas kept bubbling up. One of the conference’s cofounders, Sarah Clark Jordan, was on hand to discuss her delightful children’s novel, The BossQueen, Little BigBark, and The Sentinel Pup, and of course I couldn’t resist the opportunity — even on my vacation — to talk a little shop with her.
And a few of you will be pleased to know that the 400-mile round trip provided the ideal opportunity to finally give Harry Potter a try. The Sorcerer’s Stone CDs proved a big hit for three out of four of us (2 1/2-year-old F loudly insisted that we listen to “yock ‘n’ yoll,” which meant the occasional track from American Idiot, with a heavy thumb on the mute button). I was particularly struck by how familiar many of the names and characters were, despite my never having read or listened to the books before. The moment I heard the description of a not-yet-identified Hogwarts professor’s glare making Harry’s scar burn, I thought: “Snape.”
I’ve got the whole day off today, and four CDs still to go. I’d been planning to work on my current manuscript this afternoon, but I may need to rethink that.
Excellent post. I recently attended the Home=Education conference in Sacramento and came away equally inspired. In years past, I’ve had the opportunity to see David Albert speak, and he is truly something to see!
Excellent post. I recently attended the Home=Education conference in Sacramento and came away equally inspired. In years past, I’ve had the opportunity to see David Albert speak, and he is truly something to see!
Excellent post. I recently attended the Home=Education conference in Sacramento and came away equally inspired. In years past, I’ve had the opportunity to see David Albert speak, and he is truly something to see!
Chris, great to find your blog. I happened upon it in Tim Walker’s recent post on his blog. I love this post of yours. I empathize much with the concept you talk about, but I spend about as much time with it these days, sadly, as Jack Bristow did with Sydney growing up. Much, again, like Jack: I’m working on rectifying that.
One of the quotes I love is this:
“At the heart of Rethinking Education is the awareness that children are supremely capable of absorbing and using knowledge from our complex world. There is no need for arbitrary structure in education; the use of coercion, rewards or other behavior modification techniques as motivation are counterproductive.”
Counterproductive because a connection is being forced that doesn’t exist. That isn’t the way reality works: people who learn are rewarded because of what they learn. Contrived rewards for learning something is synthetic and futile. Learining IS its reward — it’s the teacher’s job to guide the student into that revelation — that’s when you *make* a student [for life].
It has long rubbed me the wrong way to hear something to the effect of, “Oh, you got all As on your report card, Jimmy! Mommy and daddy will buy you something!” Buy them something (“treat” them) because it will be good/fun for them and you love them — it will be better for them to see excellence reap its own rewards and know they have your love, pride, and support on a job well done.
(You knew I was long-winded, right?)
Final thought, I love the exercise of rethinking assumptions, but possibly even more interesting is this thought of what *shouldn’t* we question. I think many Christians would have a few answers for that one…and they may be the wrong answers.
Anyway, not to pick on Christians (scientists can be — as history continually shows — as bad), as I consider myself one, but I think this is one of the balancing acts that makes life as exciting as it can be: balancing the need for, or perhaps going through the cycle of, accepting assumptions and the need to question (and replace) them.
Chris, great to find your blog. I happened upon it in Tim Walker’s recent post on his blog. I love this post of yours. I empathize much with the concept you talk about, but I spend about as much time with it these days, sadly, as Jack Bristow did with Sydney growing up. Much, again, like Jack: I’m working on rectifying that.
One of the quotes I love is this:
“At the heart of Rethinking Education is the awareness that children are supremely capable of absorbing and using knowledge from our complex world. There is no need for arbitrary structure in education; the use of coercion, rewards or other behavior modification techniques as motivation are counterproductive.”
Counterproductive because a connection is being forced that doesn’t exist. That isn’t the way reality works: people who learn are rewarded because of what they learn. Contrived rewards for learning something is synthetic and futile. Learining IS its reward — it’s the teacher’s job to guide the student into that revelation — that’s when you *make* a student [for life].
It has long rubbed me the wrong way to hear something to the effect of, “Oh, you got all As on your report card, Jimmy! Mommy and daddy will buy you something!” Buy them something (“treat” them) because it will be good/fun for them and you love them — it will be better for them to see excellence reap its own rewards and know they have your love, pride, and support on a job well done.
(You knew I was long-winded, right?)
Final thought, I love the exercise of rethinking assumptions, but possibly even more interesting is this thought of what *shouldn’t* we question. I think many Christians would have a few answers for that one…and they may be the wrong answers.
Anyway, not to pick on Christians (scientists can be — as history continually shows — as bad), as I consider myself one, but I think this is one of the balancing acts that makes life as exciting as it can be: balancing the need for, or perhaps going through the cycle of, accepting assumptions and the need to question (and replace) them.
Chris, great to find your blog. I happened upon it in Tim Walker’s recent post on his blog. I love this post of yours. I empathize much with the concept you talk about, but I spend about as much time with it these days, sadly, as Jack Bristow did with Sydney growing up. Much, again, like Jack: I’m working on rectifying that.
One of the quotes I love is this:
“At the heart of Rethinking Education is the awareness that children are supremely capable of absorbing and using knowledge from our complex world. There is no need for arbitrary structure in education; the use of coercion, rewards or other behavior modification techniques as motivation are counterproductive.”
Counterproductive because a connection is being forced that doesn’t exist. That isn’t the way reality works: people who learn are rewarded because of what they learn. Contrived rewards for learning something is synthetic and futile. Learining IS its reward — it’s the teacher’s job to guide the student into that revelation — that’s when you *make* a student [for life].
It has long rubbed me the wrong way to hear something to the effect of, “Oh, you got all As on your report card, Jimmy! Mommy and daddy will buy you something!” Buy them something (“treat” them) because it will be good/fun for them and you love them — it will be better for them to see excellence reap its own rewards and know they have your love, pride, and support on a job well done.
(You knew I was long-winded, right?)
Final thought, I love the exercise of rethinking assumptions, but possibly even more interesting is this thought of what *shouldn’t* we question. I think many Christians would have a few answers for that one…and they may be the wrong answers.
Anyway, not to pick on Christians (scientists can be — as history continually shows — as bad), as I consider myself one, but I think this is one of the balancing acts that makes life as exciting as it can be: balancing the need for, or perhaps going through the cycle of, accepting assumptions and the need to question (and replace) them.