Ashley MacQuarrie's blog

Not long ago, I wrote a post, at the request of a reader, about encouraging kids to craft, create and “actually make things.”  A few weeks later, the “maker movement” went viral when Caine’s Arcade, a short film about an enterprising nine year old’s cardboard creations, hit the web.  The film introduces us to young Caine Monroy who, armed with cardboard boxes and lots of packing tape, built an elaborate arcade in his father’s auto parts shop. The film has since gotten a lot of attention, from media outlets, as well as educators who are promoting the idea that informal learning, creating, and making things with their own hands is just as important as the formal education kids get in schools.

The creativity and real-world skills children gain from this sort of unstructured productive play is invaluable, and may serve them well in their future careers; jobs which almost certainly will require technical skills, as well as workers who are inventive, adaptable, and creative.

Gaming: it seems to be the hottest trend in education right now. Just this week a study was released that found half of K-8 teachers surveyed incorporated digital games into the classroom at least twice a week, some, daily. And why not? Games are engaging, they encourage mastery, provide immediate feedback, and kids love them. But can playing a game actually make you smarter? The answer, according to some researchers, is yes.

When discussing intelligence, psychologists differentiate between two types. Crystallized intelligence is acquired, and it grows throughout life; it’s the skills and knowledge that make you a Trivial Pursuit champion, a good driver, or a talented musician.  The other kind of intelligence is fluid intelligence. It’s your ability to reason and solve unfamiliar problems, and the kind of intelligence measured by IQ tests (whether or not such tests are an accurate representation of intelligence for everyone is a topic for another discussion).

April 22 marks the 42^nd anniversary of Earth Day, a day when more than one billion people in 192 countries celebrate the Earth and focus on giving back to our planet. Not sure how to celebrate? Check out these ideas for ways to involve your family in the largest civic observance in the world!

Plant something! Go green by growing some of your own food, or planting some flowers. Involve the kids in selecting, planting and caring for plants. It’s fun, and wonderful hands-on learning opportunity. Even if you don’t have room for a garden, just a few pots on the patio, or herbs on the windowsill can brighten your home and provide fresh and healthy produce for your family. Check out these ideas for kid-friendly gardening projects.  

If you have the space, consider planting a tree in your yard. In addition to being beautiful, trees remove CO2 from the air and provide a habitat for wildlife. Don’t have a green thumb? There are several organizations that plant trees in deforested areas with the help of donations. Just $1 replants a tree in our decimated rainforests. Check out the Green World Campaign or Plant a Billion to learn more. Green World even lets you text your donation! How easy is that?

In her recent book Quiet: The Power of Introverts, author Susan Cain argues that they are, and said in a recent interview that “education, by its nature, favors the extrovert.” In her fascinating TED talk, and a recent article in the Guardian, Cain dispels some common misconceptions about introversion, and gives a powerful argument for why the world needs introverts.

“Without introverts,” Cain writes, “the world would be devoid of Newton's theory of gravity, Einstein's theory of relativity, WB Yeats's The Second Coming, Chopin's nocturnes, Proust's In Search of Lost Time, Peter Pan, Orwell's Nineteen Eighty-Four, The Cat in the Hat, Charlie Brown, the films of Steven Spielberg, Google (co-founded by introvert Larry Page) and Harry Potter.”

And yet, introverts are taught from an early age to despise their introversion and to conform to a world that values extroversion. Cain says introversion, defined simply as a preference for low-stimulation versus high stimulation environments, including social situations, is treated as “a second-class personality trait, somewhere between a disappointment and a pathology”.

In the interview, Cain says this societal preference for extroversion is evident as early as pre-school, when adults are commonly heard to comment on children who are quiet or shy (although she points out, shyness and introversion are not the same thing, and not all introverts are shy.) Later, in school, the real damage is done, as introverted children learn that they “have to act like extroverts.” She says “as soon as they get to school they will be repeatedly encouraged to join group activities, even if they would prefer not to. It's all very well-meaning but it has the cumulative effect of telling the child that their natural preferences for how they spend their time are not valid.”

What place should games have in education? Can a game foster true learning or is it at best a supplement? And how much game time should kids have? The American Academy of Pediatrics recommends that parents limit screen time (TV and video games) to no more than two hours, and that exceeding these recommendations can be a contributing factor to attention problems like ADHD. New research suggests however, that games can actually be beneficial to both children and adults, and that kids should spend more time playing, not less.

 Interestingly, the educational benefits of video games are not limited only to those titles labeled “educational”, but also include mainstream games. Research conducted by Cheryl Olson, ScD of Harvard Medical School found that playing games like Legend of Zelda and Bakugan can encourage planning, problem-solving, decision-making, creativity and self-expression. Games like Age of Empires and Civilization can encourage a child’s interest in history, geography, and international relations, especially if a parent assists in expanding on the themes of the game with related resources like museums, books, and websites.

While past studies have linked video games to the childhood obesity epidemic, new research says otherwise, that gaming can in fact encourage kids to get off the couch and exercise. These benefits aren’t limited to motion-sensing games like PBS’s educational movement games, or exercise games like Wii Fit and Dance Central 2. Olson’s research found that simply playing a realistic sports game, like football, basketball, or skateboarding, can actually lead to “increased time spent playing sports and exercising in real life.”