The Life Without School Community Blog

Digital Natives 3 -- What a Five Year Old Knows

by Laureen

Previously, I've posted about Digital Natives, (here and here) mostly in terms of  how unschooling is pretty much the most ideal way to approach the sticky problem of trying to be an authority to someone who can look up your sources faster than you can.

It did not occur to me, until I was sitting in a room with about 40 other corporate web content delivery professionals (a set of Kiss-of-Death adjectives if ever there were), at a recent gathering for sharing of information about using multimedia on websites, how thoroughly our assumptions are informed by the schooling we got. The point was to familiarize people with the technologies available, and give them some ideas for how to use them.

So how come, I'm sitting there wondering, less than 1/4 of the presentations  actually used multimedia? See, corporate folks? Their attention is on keeping their jobs, and looking good for their management. Sort of like how kids in school want to impress the teacher. More and more, I'm convinced that they don't actually participate in the web beyond what's required in their daily work, the same way that schooled kids tend to do what's required for the grade, and not much more, and certainly not much different.

For example, one presentation stressed strongly how important it is to have good solid metadata in things like videos, because there's no text for a search engine to provide more context and/or relevancy through, so the tagging you give is pretty much all you get. People all over the room are nodding and smiling, like this is news.

Um, hello? Old news, folks. My son Rowan, who is five, understands metatagging. He knows how to start the laptop, launch a browser window, get to YouTube, and search for Tom & Jerry cartoons... in English. He also gets really upset when his searches return videos in other languages (although sometimes he thinks the Japanese ones are pretty funny...). He gets that lack of appropriate tagging is a usability problem, because that's what it is for him. Of course, he doesn't have the language to fully express all that the same way we do. But the fact is that as a consumer of multimedia content, his behavior and his reactions are utterly predictable, and at age five, he is already forming opinions about the technological acuity of the people who post such content.

You can remind people to tag their content, but if they are not consumers of such content, they won't really understand, as Rowan does, how insanely frustrating it is when it all goes pearshaped.

So then, later in the day, people are talking about using new media (whatever that is) to attract "the new developer"... you know, the youth who are driving things now. And I'm nodding, cause I totally agree. And then they start talking, heaven help me, about the Universities and speaking to college students! And in my head, I can see Rowan, already cruising the web, already conversant with how to click past annoying Flash intro pages, already becoming a savvy consumer of online technology. Considering the ugly brushes we've already had with minor forms of academia, (here and here), the very idea of my child going to college is ridiculous, and waiting to graduate from the Ivory Towers Of Ossified Thinking to become successful is laughable in the economy of today.

Rowan knows who Duke is, he knows what Flash animation is, and he knows to look for the blessed "skip this intro" buttons. He knows what HTML is, and I'm teaching him coding, a little bit at a time. I think about him encountering his first "Hello, World" and I cringe just a little bit. Just like it's absurd for a roomful of adults who don't even use multimedia to stand around talking about presenting it to people who are native users of it, it's absurd to think that someday some professor will be more competent to teach my child about the Cloud than he, who's been breathing it for years, is.

I'd like to really recommend that my colleagues and compatriots leave work early, go home... and watch their kids interact with the digital environment. They will learn far more from that exercise about the context of the Digital Native, and about the reality of content propagation for that audience, than they will by listening to a roomful of Digital Immigrants blather on about a sky they've never even really seen.

Laureen is a writer, a professional editor, a scuba instructor, a beginning  sailor, a traveler, and an obsessive researcher who's chiefly focused  on, and delighted with, her husband Jason and her sons Rowan and  Kestrel. She's a lifelong Californian, which lends a very distinctive  spin to both her ideas and her politics, and she's discovered, in her  peregrinations, that the world is far smaller yet far more fascinating  than anyone gives it credit for being. She holds forth her opinions on  that in her blog, The ElementalMom.

Unschooling and the Digital Native

by Laureen

My husband Jason is a major video game geek. We have boxes in the garage, full of all his old game systems, and the games he couldn't trade back in for credit on newer ones. The guys at the local GameCrazy don't know his name; they just call him “big spender.”

I've known about this fascination since we started dating, and in fact, his ability to press the pause button and continue to interact with the people in the room was one of the things about him that impressed me to begin with. We'd curl up together, him with the latest Zelda, me with my laptop, and I'd cheer with him when he beat a level, and be dutifully sad when the solution to the puzzle eluded him. We discussed the ethics of cheats, and whether it was worth it or not. To this day, I get all nostalgic about our dating days when I hear the startup music to “The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker.”

When we had our first child, Jason and Rowan spent many the happy hour cuddling together, while Jason narrated game strategy, and Rowan soaked up the comfort and security of being in his Papa's arms. That's not a direct benefit of game playing by any stretch, but it does set the scene for What Happened Next.

Rowan pretty much demanded a controller of his own from the time he could make his hands obey his direction. And he knew the difference between when the controller was connected, and when it was not. No substitutions tolerated; he wanted to play.

Some amazing father-son bonding times have happened in front of The Box. Sometimes, it's a game that Rowan can play, sometimes, Rowan sits and watches Jason play and asks questions. Part collaboration, part adoration, it's precious time that the two of them share together. Usually, I go to bed pretty early, so the two pals hang out, and more nights than not, Rowan still falls asleep in Papa's arms while they play together.

Just for that alone, I'd say video games were worth it and then some.

But as Rowan's gotten older (he'll be five in a few months), a fascinating new dimension has been introduced, and that's what's interesting in terms of this blog, in terms of learning. Because lately, Rowan has been expressing his own gaming style, totally independent of how Jason plays. Lately, Rowan has begun to shine as a Native.

The term digital native was coined by Marc Prensky, who explains it like this:

They are native speakers of technology, fluent in the digital language of computers, video games, and the Internet. I refer to those of us who were not born into the digital world as digital immigrants. We have adopted many aspects of the technology, but just like those who learn another language later in life, we retain an “accent” because we still have one foot in the past.

Recently, Rowan's been playing LEGO Star Wars and LEGO Star Wars II: The Original Trilogy, on his own. Both Jason and his brother, Marc, played through both games and beat them before Rowan got to play, so there were going to be no surprises, and nothing overly frustrating, that Rowan couldn't be helped with. And neither one of them came up with the solutions to various problems in the game that Rowan has. He figured out that the Stormtroopers will never shoot at R2-D2, so you can use R2-D2 to shove “bad guys” over the edges of tree bridges in the Ewok world, and off the catwalks within the Death Star.

And when it gets to be time for Jason and Marc to play games that require a little deeper strategic thinking and manual dexterity, like Shadow of the Colossus, Rowan's perspective as a native has on more than one occasion enabled him to sit back and offer solutions that never occurred to my husband or his brother, who have many, many more years of game playing experience between them than Rowan even has years of life.

I've read through some of the literature on this phenomenon, and I'm convinced that it falls short, because it's being written by people who self-identify as professional educators. As an unschooler, I don't believe in educators, I believe in learners. My personal paradigm rests firmly on the assumption that children are self-starters, and that the information they absorb is the information most necessary to them in the environment they inhabit, so I'm exploring this digital native idea with that in mind.

Prensky states,

Today’s students have not just changed incrementally from those of the past, nor simply changed their slang, clothes, body adornments, or styles, as has happened between generations previously. A really big discontinuity has taken place. One might even call it a “singularity” – an event which changes things so fundamentally that there is absolutely no going back. This so-called “singularity” is the arrival and rapid dissemination of digital technology in the last decades of the 20th century.

Today’s students – K through college – represent the first generations to grow up with this new technology. They have spent their entire lives surrounded by and using computers, video games, digital music players, video cams, cell phones, and all the other toys and tools of the digital age. Today’s average college grads have spent less than 5,000 hours of their lives reading, but over 10,000 hours playing video games (not to mention 20,000 hours watching TV). Computer games, email, the Internet, cell phones and instant messaging are integral parts of their lives.

I know this is utterly true in our household. I work in technology; our family owes its income to the Ivory Towers of Supreme Geekery. Both of my sons recognize Duke, the Java programming language mascot immediately. Technology is integral to their environment.

Recently, a well-meaning relative got quite upset when she learned that Rowan could not yet, at age four, write his name. “But he can type it,” we argued. Typing your name matters far more in today's world, between now and the day he gets a bank account. And it's entirely possible that by that time, writing one's name may be made completely irrelevant by digital signatures, smart cards, and other identity technology advances. Prensky gives away his bias when he calls out hours spent reading, playing games, or watching TV. It's pretty clear there's a value judgment attached to those numbers, or he wouldn't bother stating all three. To my mind, though, as the mother of a native, those numbers are cause to rejoice.

The human animal has always adapted to the prevalent forces in its environment, assimilating that which is common, and ignoring that which is rare. So assimilating skill in a digital medium isn't really any different than assimilating fire, the wheel, the written word, or the assembly line (and as an aside, the school system as we know it was designed to prepare people for only the most recent of those advances, the others having been fully integrated already). Each thing changed the world, but human beings are still the ones doing the fabulous work of adapting and rising to new challenges.  How wonderful, then, to be faced with evidence of the fact that our children are, at the threshold of yet another world-changing set of inventions, adapting beautifully. Arthur C. Clarke knew what he was talking about when he wrote “Childhood's End.” But unlike the world Clarke writes about, there is absolutely no good reason we immigrants have to be left behind.

Prensky continues,

Digital Natives are used to receiving information really fast. They like to parallel process and multi-task. They prefer their graphics before their text rather than the opposite. They prefer random access (like hypertext). They function best when networked. They thrive on instant gratification and frequent rewards. They prefer games to “serious” work.

To me, a digital immigrant with a very minimal accent, this sounds like a perfect description of the difference between the unschooling learning environment, and the school one. Prensky proves this theory for me with the following statement:

“Future” content is to a large extent, not surprisingly, digital and technological. But while it includes software, hardware, robotics, nanotechnology, genomics, etc. it also includes the ethics, politics, sociology, languages and other things that go with them. This “Future” content is extremely interesting to today’s students. But how many Digital Immigrants are prepared to teach it? Someone once suggested to me that kids should only be allowed to use computers in school that they have built themselves. It’s a brilliant idea that is very doable from the point of view of the students’ capabilities. But who could teach it?

No one can. But children can learn it, and that's what matters most. It's about the learning, not about the teaching. And I think that's why so many parents are afraid of the pervasiveness of digital technology in their children's lives, and what they're doing with it. But unschooling offers, to my thinking, one of the best ways for the immigrant to bridge the gap to their native child. Again, Mr. Prensky:

“Sure they have short attention spans—for the old ways of learning,” says a professor. Their attention spans are not short for games, for example, or for anything else that actually interests them. As a result of their experiences Digital Natives crave interactivity—an immediate response to their each and every action. Traditional schooling provides very little of this compared to the rest of their world (one study showed that students in class get to ask a question every 10 hours). So it generally isn’t that Digital Natives can’t pay attention, it’s that they choose not to.

School simply cannot provide adequate interactivity. But unschooling, where a dedicated and genuinely interested parent is right there beside the child, experiencing the same things (but probably in different ways), is a way to achieve that interactivity, and continue to minimize the gap between the digital native and the digital immigrant.

So what does all this mean for me, for my children, for our family?

I am in absolute agreement with Mr. Prensky's final statement, that holds true no matter what label you hang on your child's learning path:

Yet these educators know something is wrong, because they are not reaching their Digital Native students as well as they reached students in the past. So they face an important choice.

On the one hand, they can choose to ignore their eyes, ears and intuition, pretend the Digital Native/Digital Immigrant issue does not exist, and continue to use their suddenly-much-less-effective traditional methods until they retire and the Digital Natives take over.

Or they can chose instead to accept the fact that they have become Immigrants into a new Digital world, and to look to their own creativity, their Digital Native students, their sympathetic administrators and other sources to help them communicate their still-valuable knowledge and wisdom in that world’s new language.

My children are clearly digital natives. But I don't need to let that make me feel different, feel separate. Because they are also native guides, if I choose to walk along with them.

Laureen is a writer, a professional editor, a scuba instructor, a beginning sailor, a traveler, and an obsessive researcher who's chiefly focused on, and delighted with, her husband Jason and her sons Rowan and Kestrel. She's a lifelong Californian, which lends a very distinctive spin to both her ideas and her politics, and she's discovered, in her peregrinations, that the world is far smaller yet far more fascinating than anyone gives it credit for being. She holds forth her opinions on that in her blog, The Elemental Mom

Homeschool Teen Reviews

by Shay

My eldest daughter, Caitlín, is a writer in her own right. Almost 16 years-old, she is skilled far beyond the level I had attained at that age. This is due to both nature and nurture; she has the brains and the inclination, and has grown up in an environment that provides excellent support for her endeavors.

One of Cait's more recent endeavors has been creating the HomeschoolTeenReviews discussion list. My daughter has been aware of e-mail discussion lists for almost as long as she can remember, and has a good understanding of their potential value. As with my own discussion lists, Caitlín's was born out of the desire to create something that would satisfy her, but it has also served many others. The description of her list states that it is "for homeschooled teens to post their reviews of books and movies, in order to share their favorites and read recommendations from others."

My daughter has learned a lot through creating and managing her list. Caitlín has had practice setting boundaries with people she has never met, risked being "unpopular" for sticking to her boundaries, worked on making her message positive, discovered how to deal with the host if there are problems, and explored ways to make HS-Teen-Reviews a more active list.

In addition, Cait's list has given her an outlet for her prolific reviews. She has over 11 pages of book and movie reviews lined up to post over time. The first time I read one of them, I was incredulous that this girl, who formerly "hated" writing, had created a thoughtful, well-crafted review. I noted that it was written in a professional format, and asked how she came up with that. "I read other reviews online and decided which elements I would like to include."

Raising this writer did not involve compulsory study of grammar, sentence diagrams, or long lists of spelling words to study or define. My daughter has simply been exposed to plenty of good writing, engaged in a variety of conversations, received assistance in finding answers to her questions, and supported in whatever project she chooses to take on. Caitlín became a writer by living a writer's life.

Shay Seaborne is an edgewalker, known to leap empty-handed into the void. Fun and magic are crucial elements in the design of her life. Shay filed her first Notice of Intent to homeschool in Virginia in 1995. She loves living and learning with her two daughters, who are turning out well despite being raised far from the turbid waters of the mainstream. This piece originally appeared on Shay’s homeschool blog, called “Anecdotal Evidence.”

So What About Science?

By Linda

Author’s note: This column is dedicated to my parents, Loretta and Richard Battin, who allowed their four kids to be scientists by example.

My neighbor, Keri, is a sixth grade teacher in Fairfax County Public Schools. Often we sit and chat about how she teaches in her classroom and how we teach as a homeschooling family. Keri is a cool teacher. She is beautiful, nice, creative, and enthusiastic about being a teacher. I would love to have my daughter in her class. She is the best of what being a teacher is all about.

She has recently been promoted to the lead science teacher for sixth grade at her school. As a result, she is taking some classes this summer that are designed to help her accomplish this goal. One of the assignments is to read a particular book about inquiry based learning in science (Beyond the Science Kit, Inquiry in Action) and write a report about how to implement it in the classroom. So the other day we were sitting outside, discussing her assignment. Just as she was about to begin her paper– our daughters (ages 10 and 9) and another neighbor (age 6) decided that now was the time to solve an important problem.

A small ball had rolled into the storm drain, and they wanted it back.  The kids took packing tape, wrapped it around the end of a garden house and then lowered the hose into a street drain. After several failed attempts with the tape/hose arrangement and much discussion, they decided to turn on the water in hopes of getting the ball to flow through the drain to the drainage field. They already knew where the water would flow after observing this from numerous rains.

They experimented with different levels of water pressure and flow and came to the conclusion that the force and/or volume of water were insufficient to move the ball. At that point, one of the kids suggested that a heavy rain (or perhaps the water from the pool – which later was disproved) would provide the amount of flow that they needed.  There was no evidence of frustration stemming from their “failed” results.  Instead, they were excited for the next rain storm and prepared to wait. 

Now here is where it gets interesting. Keri saw this and said: “Ah HA! This is a perfect example of child-led discovery. Inquiry in action. This is what science education needs to be about.” And as a first statement I agree with her. In her written report (which she shared with me), she discussed that science-kits do nothing to teach inquiry. And I agree with her about that.

But (yes there has to be a but). Science education is not (or should not) be all of one or the other. Part of the scientific process is sharing knowledge, concepts, and theories. Demonstrating and being able to repeat experiments are all part of science too; a very important part. So while science-kits do not teach inquiry, they do provide a basis from which inquiry may develop; i.e. here is what we know today and how we can prove it.

I think (as a scientist myself) that the goals in science education need to be more clearly defined. Is the purpose of science instruction to demonstrate principles, or develop scientific thought? These two goals are different, and both should be present in any science education plan. The question is when is the right time to do which!

It is important to demonstrate principles in order to explain concepts. If you wish to explain acids and bases, having a lab that demonstrates the behavior of acids and bases helps kids to understand the concepts – because they can see it in action. From that point, allowing inquiry to take place by asking them to find areas in their every day lives where acids and bases play a part would allow them to discover on their own and hopefully give them a starting point for discovery.

I think it is a mistake to say that demonstration labs are not important. Just as it is a mistake to not allow inquiry. Both are necessary. They serve different functions and achieve different goals. Furthermore, I believe that concepts and demonstrations need to happen either when an inquiry is made first – or when a student is old enough to appreciate and understand the concept. In all cases – a good teacher must introduce how the concepts impact their everyday life. For example –

Why are acids important? Where do we use them in our lives?

One of my pet peeves in science when I was a kid was how the regular science class was taught. Most science curriculum focused (and still does) on drilling concepts. Most kids could simply recite lab results and ‘facts’ from textbooks, follow lab instructions, and keep neat lab books. But, put them in a field situation where they needed to think and develop their own tests and procedures to solve a problem and they could not even start. As for me – I refused to memorize facts, hated performing demonstration labs (watching the teacher do it was enough), struggled with keeping my lab book neat, and thought lab time (and most class time) was wasted time.

On the other hand, for my science research (in junior high, I was in a school program where we had a full class period to do science research of our own choosing in addition to regular science classes), my lab book was organized and meticulously kept up with my notes, I loved being in the lab and trying new ideas, I loved discussing concepts and possibilities with my teacher, and I had the chance to work with leading researchers in the field at a nearby university. I could tell you everything (and more) than you could ever want to know about my topic (Myasthenia Gravis to be precise). Science was fun and interesting. It had a defined purpose: to solve a problem.

I think inquiry based learning is important in the every day application of this concept not just science, but in life. That when given the chance for inquiry, kids must be encouraged to do so (as opposed to “do it this way – it will solve the problem”). And that is what I saw in the situation with the kids solving their “ball in the drain” problem.

Anyone one of the three parents could have stopped the process:

No, the tape idea will not work – the ball is too heavy.
No, the hose will not generate enough pressure or flow to get the ball to where you want it.
No, just forget about the ball – we can buy another one for $ 2.

All of these responses would have been typical, and I admit crossed my mind at least once. You had to see the faces of these three kids though! They were excited. They had a plan. They had a theory. And they were not fazed by not succeeding. That is what science is all about.

It begins when kids want to mix the toothpaste with the shampoo and see what happens (yes – all three of my daughters came up with this experiment on their own – among others). As a parent – do you let them, or not? Do you let them cook and try new combinations of ingredients? Or do you force them to follow a recipe? Do you solve every problem for your children, or answer every question for them? Or do you point them to the books on the shelves or the computer (and internet) and say:

“Why don’t you research that yourself and see what you find!” 

Do you have ‘food for thought’ stuff laying around the house for them to discover on their own? My own interest in medical research came from flipping through my mother’s nursing books and journals that she allowed me to read – even though way over my head by most people’s definition.

Science does not happen in a vacuum (pardon the pun) - it happens all around us - in every day life. The idea should be to capture that - and allow kids to identify problems that concern them by stimulating their interests and pointing out some potential places to start.  What I love about the “ball in the drain” story is that the kids had a problem. They used scientific methods (trial and error) to try to solve it. That is the natural way of science.

Great science teachers lay the foundation of scientific concepts and then say:

“This is what we know today, maybe one of you will prove some of these concepts wrong! And – you have permission to test these theories.”

And most importantly allow them to fail – without recriminations – thereby learning from the results and your reaction to their failure.

Keri told me that the book she was reading goes further to say that teachers need to engage ourselves in science and problem solving.  Wow – now there is a thought! How many times do we do so in our lives? Do we attempt to solve our own problems – or do we turn to someone else to solve them? Are we willing to risk failure in our own attempts to solve a problem? How do we react when and if we fail? Do we beat ourselves up – or remain unfazed and wait for the rain (another potential solution)?

My love for science did not come from science class – it came from my life. We lived in the backyard of NASA (Kennedy Space Flight Center). We saw science in action as we went to the moon, developed the Shuttle and SpaceLab, discovered new celestial bodies and so much more. I listened as my dad talked about the work being done at the Space Center, I read through the newsletters and mission fliers he brought home.

Also being in central Florida, we lived near the swamp (okay, technically it is a wildlife refuge – but to us kids - it was just a swamp). As kids, we spent hours exploring the woods and swamp. We grew to know and love the animal life there, the diversity of plants, and just the joy of exploring. And yes, of course, our parents had to kick us out of the house and say – go play! After all – kids can be lazy too.

Science discovery, in the applied sense of the word, also did not start in my science class – it started because of an advertisement on TV (my “ah-ha!” moment). If you grew up in the 60s maybe you remember this ad. It was a public service announcement to get people to stop littering and pollution. I don’t remember all the scenes in the ad and my memory may be wrong – but as I recall, it begins with an eagle flying over the land – the camera view is such that you see what the eagle sees – garbage and pollution on the land, in the air and in the water. The ad ends as the eagle flies over the head of an Indian Chief, and they look at each other – their eyes meet. Then, as the Indian Chief looks to the camera, a single tear rolls down his face. The memory of this ad still brings tears to my eyes. It was such a powerful ad. And it changed my life.

Before I tell you how – I want to share one last thought. Kids are natural explorers. The best science teacher you can be is to encourage the explorer in them; no matter what their age. Yes, make them safe, but before you say “no”, ask yourself, “why not?” Let them try things, let them mix stuff, let them theorize without you stating the ‘facts’. There will be time enough for facts later. Encourage the explorer to be strong; for today’s facts, can so easily be disproved tomorrow by some new breakthrough.

So – how a single ad and science changed my life. 

As a direct result of seeing that ad - I decided to do a research project for my sixth grade science class (as extra credit, because science projects were not required) to show how laundry detergents, specifically phosphates, pollute the waterways and the impact to animals. I received an A on my project – but – more importantly, and amazingly, I did something else. The results of my research proved to my mom that she needed to find a laundry detergent that did not contain phosphates (and yes, she did)! To this day I am amazed that she did that. Something I did, at age 11, made my mom change something that she did as an adult.

Now there is the power in science.

Linda is a multi-tasking (translation: crazy) mom of three, homeschooling since 1992, world traveler, dreamer, writer (baker, chef and bottlewasher).