The compelling reasons kids need nature were explained factually and forcefully by Richard Louv in Last Child in the Woods: Saving Our Children from Nature-Deficit Disorder. In fact, that book inspired major new efforts to reconnect kids with nature including Children & Nature Network, National Wildlife Federation’s Green Hour, and No Child Left Inside. Louv [...]
Laura Grace Weldon
RSS feed for this section
How to listen and how to be heard
Do you really want a dead cat on your desk?” When a teacher took a parent’s phone call at the end of another busy school day, she was taken aback by the question. She couldn’t figure out why a first grader in her class came home telling his mother that their recently deceased family pet [...]
Fun theory
I’m not aware of any official Fun Theory in the field of learning. But fun shimmers under the surface of motivation and focus like a very big fish. And the fish named Fun shouldn’t be ignored. I lifted the term Fun Theory from a Volkswagen campaign. Their videos have spread across the Internet. One shows [...]
Accepting challenges, embracing mistakes
Interesting problems and exciting risks are life’s calisthenics. They stretch us in directions we need to grow. Children are particularly oriented this way. They think up huge questions and search for the answers. They face fears. They puzzle over inconsistencies in what is said and done around them. They relentlessly challenge themselves to achieve social, [...]
Empowering children’s interests without excessive interference
Alexa began creating a village when she was seven years old. She liked to build tiny houses out of sticks and leaves in the backyard, something she particularly enjoyed doing when her friends came over. Together they made up stories about the tiny people who would move in. Alexa was frustrated when wind and rain [...]
How the 10,000 hour rule benefits us
If you haven’t heard about the 10,000 Hour Rule, you’re probably busy doing what people do. Living life on your own terms. Malcolm Gladwell identified this 10,000 hour maxim in his book, Outliers. The rule has to do with attaining Big Time Success. Based on Anders Ericsson’s analysis of people who reached the top of [...]
