Future world and local leaders at play

I just love this sign!

We saw this today when we drove by our local Campfire camp in Oklahoma City: Camp Dakani. The need for young people to spend unstructured time in natural environments to develop self-confidence and capacities for independent decision-making skills is a key theme in Richard Louv's book Last Child in the Woods: Saving Our Children from Nature-Deficit Disorder." The need for students to have TIME to be creative, to discover, to learn to resolve conflicts, to make decisions independently as well as collaboratively with peers in complex, unpredictable environments is vital-- not optional. Dr. Yong Zhao, in his closing keynote at BLC07, mentioned how video game environments now provide some of the only opportunities some young people have to be in these types of situations today (albeit virtual, rather than natural.) Kids NEED opportunities to live life an unscripted contexts outside the constant, direct supervision and CONTROL of adults. With the emphasis in many communities on organized sports and other structured activities led by adults, these kinds of opportunities are often quite rare.

Rather than relegating these types of experiences to after-school, at-home contexts, I think schools need to recognize the need for and provide opportunities for this type of learning as part of the school day. The unstructured nature of learning which takes place in these types of situations are in direct conflict with the hierarchical, controlling, largely teacher-directed environment of school and its formal curriculum, however. That is why I think opportunities for students to creatively play and invent with Scratch software at our kids' school this year have the best hope in an after-school, club context.

I'm doing lots of thinking along these lines in preparation for my keynote address for educators in Goodland, Kansas, this coming Tuesday. I'll be remixing and adding to ideas I initially shared at NECC in June in my presentation about School 2.0.This post was blogged from the Oklahoma City Apple Store on a gorgeous new, t h i n 20" display iMac! One of these would look Soooooo good in our house!