Learning through Play

I was listening to NPR this morning, like I do every morning and there was a thought provoking snippet about learning. The gist of it was that kids learn best when they are allowed to play and make believe. Video games and structured play have taken away the kids' opportunities to imagine and play. What they are finding is that those imaginative times are when kids learn how to act as various members of society. We all remember playing teacher or parents or the milkman (why did I play the milkman? I've never seen a real, living milkman in my life. I think I would be a good one though, except I don't drink milk). As kids pretend to be different people, they are developing the social skills to take on different roles later in life.

So when the kids sit down to play a video game, even an educational game, they do not have the opportunity to 'try out' being different members of society and they thereby are lacking some social development. When kids go to school and the school structures all of their time for 'learning', they miss the opportunity to explore different roles and how to interact as different members of society.

The NPR piece was about some schools that are providing these opportunities for social development in a more structured setting. The kids have to plan out how they are going to play and then take on the role as planned. I think there are better ways to go about this (like letting kids play and not interrupting them). Of course children need to be educated, I'm not arguing against education. I am arguing for giving kids the freedom to play and imagine, uninhibited by their unimaginative adult onlookers.

As I rode into school today I was thinking of this and I became a little concerned. Our kids love imaginative play. I don't think I have ever seen Mugwump pretend to be anything other than a dog since we read "Julie of the Wolves". Six-pence has a larger variety, but I don't know that it's much better. He pretends to be a Mammoth or a Buoy. I worry a little that Mugwump is preparing himself to live among the wolves and Six-Pence is preparing to join a herd of extinct animals. On a brighter note, buoys are steadfast and unmovable and a beacon of light for those around it. The social skills of a buoy, however, seem to be lacking.

As for my own learning, I decided to take the long way home in order to clear my mind. Here's what I found. If you want to clear your mind, getting lost on a bunch of old country roads in the middle of the night isn't the best bet. Here are just a few of things that were on my mind while I was trying to clear it:

• I wonder how big that dog I hear is?
• I wonder if he is behind a fence?
• I wonder if he is faster than me?
• I wonder if this road turns to dirt or dead-ends soon?
• I wonder how many other dogs are on this road?
• I wonder if this road comes out anywhere near my house?

I don't know why I ended those statements with question marks, but we'll just say that it was an expression of unwarranted doubt. It was a beautiful night and a wonderful time to get out and explore.

P.S. Grammie, I got your email. It sounded like you couldn't get to the other blog site. I have a link on the left side of the page. When you move the little arrow over the words, "Mugwump's blog" your arrow will turn to a pointing finger. Click the left button on the mouse and it should take you to his blog. When you are there, if you click on the comments button at the bottom of a post and then click on the little circle that says, "anonymous" it should let you type in the comment box (I am going to go enable that feature right now). When you are done, type the squiggly letters in the box they are supposed to go in and click the button at the bottom of that screen that says "publish your comment". I hope that works.

Uhhhh

I have some ideas that I want to write about, but they need to be further developed. So today I leave you with a favorite quote of mine.

A common mistake that people make when trying to design something completely foolproof is to underestimate the ingenuity of complete fools.

Douglas Adams

If you've never read anything by Douglas Adams, you should. The Hitch Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy is a good place to start.

Capitalism vs. Industrialism

I am going to respond to Earl's comment from a couple days ago. I had my little rant on global warming and how it was merely a symptom of capitalism. Earl commented that he felt that capitalism isn't the problem, but rather industrialization. Capitalism is an economic system that is simply controlled by supply and demand. It is the industrialization that is causing the problems (Correct me if I got that wrong Earl).

I am going to preface this with my credentials. I'm an exercise physiologist. I am studying to receive a PhD in Exercise Science with an emphasis in Health Promotion. I have never in my life taken an economics class. So this is my attempt to express my views in an area where I don't have a complete understanding. The reason I'm doing this is because I want to learn. If you disagree, let me know. If I'm wrong, let me know and explain it to me. If you think I'm ugly, keep it to yourself, I don't want my wife to find out.

The way I see it is that capitalism and industrialization are difficult to separate. OK, I'm going to be real honest, I just had to wikipedia "industrialisation" to see what I was talking about. I agree with Earl, industrialisation is the problem. It is the idea that we need to make more, to become industrialized. Earl made some good points about economies not based on capitalism that also destroy resources. I can't counter that argument. Probably because he's right.

I want to draw an analogy here. I'm going to compare capitalism and industrialization with the driver of a car and the car itself. People who drive cars are not bad. In fact, much good can be done by people in cars. They can give me a ride when I get a flat tire... they just don't do that around here. They can transport injured persons to medical attention. They can get needed goods from one place to another. Drivers are good, as is capitalism.

Industrialization can also be good. It's like the car. Without it we end up in an agrarian society with little room for 'advancement'. (I really don't think that more industry or a move from an agrarian society is a move 'up' or an 'improvement', but that's a topic for another day.) The problem is that we have lines of 3,000 pound cars carrying one person each in order to get a large mass of people to nearly the same place. It's wasteful. Is it the person (capitalism) that is doing a bad thing? Or is it the car (industrialization)?

I'm going to say neither... or both. I just argued that both the driver and the car can be good things. The problem is that industrialization is moving at a rate that is deteriorating natural resources faster then the planet can handle. That is the fault of industrialization and the desire of countries to produce more. But why do they want to produce more? In order to get more money into the hands of the people so they can spend it and further drive industrialization. So capitalism isn't necessarily the problem, but the fact that capitalism (the driver) has the throttle wide open at all times is pushing industrialization (the car) at speeds that are just to fast for the vehicle. Consumerism is driving it's 72 VW bus at speeds that should be reserved for Ferrari's.

I hope I didn't just embarrass myself with that analogy. I think it sounded really good, but that is certainly not my area of expertise.

There is one place that I would like to disagree with Earl. He said that capitalism to encourage good business and put environmentally unfriendly enterprises out of business. That simply doesn't happen. Wal-Mart is still in business even though they push for lower and lower prices relying on poor working conditions and environmentally unhealthy practices. If capitalism worked as a moral agent (i.e. consumers chose based on businesses making good, humane choices), Wal-Mart would have been out of business long ago. The fact is that capitalism is amoral and the system within the US separates consumers from the circumstances under which products were produced. It's all about price and that drives industrialization to destroy the environment to keep prices low.

I'm going to stop now before I really embarrass myself. I do have more to say about advertising and subsidies as they play in the game, but I'm not going to.

Homemaker

Don't ask yourself what the world needs, ask yourself what makes you come alive. And then go do that. Because what the world needs are people who have come alive.

Harold Whitman

I recently attended a presentation by a fairly well known city planner (ironically, I don't remember his name). After he was formally presented by the host, he came to the 'stage' and introduced himself as a homemaker. No, he did not stay at home with his family every day, but his home is the earth and his ultimate goals in life revolve around maintaining and the earth so that we can live on it.

I really liked his perspective. I want to take a step back and define what a 'homemaker' is. By traditional definition, my wife is a homemaker. She stays home and tends to the children, keeps the house and does the laundry, etc. Unfortunately, homemaking is often looked up on as "not doing anything" or "not living up to your potential". I couldn't disagree more. I think one of the most important tasks on this earth is to raise the next generation and prepare them for the world they will eventually run. Don't get me wrong, I do really important things all day, like telling people to be more active and eat better, but it when it comes right down to it, my career has little lasting power. The work my wife does at home raising our children has effects that will last many generations. My job makes money, hers doesn't, but I would say that my wife is of far greater value to our household than am I.

So what does my wife do in keeping our home? She spends a lot of time tending to children. Sure, she could put them in front of the television (if we had one) and let the programming slowly suck the knowledge right out of them while she got more housework done. She doesn't. She interacts with our children at the expense of a pristinely clean home. I would have it no other way. Don't get me wrong, our home is presentable. Our things are generally where they belong and you can easily walk from room to room. Is the floor scrubbed daily? no. Is the dusting done weekly? Lets just say the dusting is done weakly. Could we be making more money and be able to give our kids more 'stuff' if my wife were to go get a job? Absolutely. I think the focus of our efforts to live simply revolve around our effort to increase interaction in the home and demonstrate that happiness comes from relationships and not stuff.

That is what I want to do as a profession as well, just on a different level. I want to be a 'homemaker' for the earth. My niche is in city design and active modes of transportation. I want to help design cities that promote walking. While I'm certainly interested in improving the health of people, more importantly I'm interested in increasing opportunities of people to talk with one another and interact. Does it take 'stuff' to interact? No. On the contrary, as people acquire more stuff, it seems to draw them apart into little cliques that limit interaction. Do I think that the earth is suffering from the amount of 'stuff' people have? Yes I do. While I have some very strong environmental views, I think the greatest benefits that will be seen from living a more deliberate and purposeful life is that we can lose the dependence on stuff and increase or improve our relationships.

You may note that there is a lot of room for compromise and I think that some 'stuff' is OK. Here is the key to my environmental views, as well as what I think will improve social interactions and society as a whole... Our current rate of consumption is going to destroy the earth. That doesn't mean we should all be aesthetics living with nothing, but living to build relationships rather than accumulations of stuff will greatly improve the earth and the fabric of society.

Thanks to all who commented on my son's blog, he was really excited about it.

Blog review

It's about time, but I finally did it. I broke down and updated my blog. I added links, I updated the picture of my family (look, there are 5 and most are looking in the general direction of the camera). OK, I didn't do much else, but I needed to do that for a long time. So I figured I should take a post to talk about the upgrades.

So what prompted this upgrade? No, it wasn't the excess time I have on my hands, it was the fact that we started a blog for the Mugwump last night. I had to add him to my blog roll, even though I hesitated. You see, this is sort of a sad day because I'm going to lose 80% of my readership (I have 5 readers now, 4 will leave). My family reads this blog in hopes of seeing pictures and I generally disappoint. My 4 year old is all about taking pictures and making us post them. We think this will be a good learning experience for him, but it's also going to mean that nobody reads my blog, and I'm OK with that.

I want to make a couple comments about the Mugwump's blog. First, almost everything that is written there is what he says and then his mother or I simply write it down. It is sometimes lacking a little in flow, but it is genuine 4 year old. Occasionally he will type something himself and that is usually obvious. He did write the final phrase in last night's post and it would appear that anyone could have typed it, but that was all his work.

Now I have a favor to ask. My wife and I are hoping to make this a learning opportunity for him, especially in his efforts to read and write (He does more writing on paper than at the computer, but I still think it's good). Could you go over there and make a comment on his blog? Right now you have to be registered, I might change that to allow anonymous comments. I see that my dad already commented... Odd, he's never commented here. Anyway, it would be great if you could leave a simple message (short, one syllable words, nothing complex; just like when you leave a comment here). If you could leave your name (or a fake... whatever) and where you are from we can use this as a reading lesson and a little geography.

I want to sort of review the other blogs that I have listed on my sidebar.

Cultural Vertigo: He hasn't posted as regularly as of late, but I've always enjoyed his writing. He's got some great philosophical understandings and he lives without a car. Although irregular, his posts are worth reading.

Cycling Sasquatch: Very down to earth. He seems like a normal guy and he writes on political/anti car issues that I like reading about. It's worth a visit.

Fat Cyclist: Technically I know him, but not well, so he's still not on my 'friend' list. It is generally about cycling or weight loss. It is absolutely hilarious. If you haven't been there (which I doubt), you should visit.

Jill in Alaska: Crazy journalist who lives in Juneau. She writes very well and she does crazy things on a bike (think twenty below and spending the night out on a mountain bike trail). They are fun to read.

Minus Car: He too is not writing as much as he used to, but it's generally pro bike, anti car so I enjoy it.

No Impact Man: This is probably the most popular site on my list. He and his family went a year making as little impact as possible on the land. They live in NYC and had their electricity turned off, did their laundry by hand in the bath tub and didn't drive cars or even take public transit for a year. He puts a wonderful spin on it and is a talented writer, you should visit, at least to see what it's about.

NYC Bike Snob: He's funny, although not as clean as the other sites mentioned. If you are into the fixed gear culture, it would be a shame to miss his sarcastic slams on fixies. He's a talented writer.

Thoughtful Consumer: She wrote a book about decluttering and now maintains this blog (in efforts to sell the book?). Anyway, she is not nearly as extreme as I am, but she has some good advice for down-sizing.

Walk Slowly Live Wildly: I don't have any idea where I found this site, but she is a wonderful writer (although quite verbose). If you are a Christian and looking to simplify, she has some of the most sincere, heart felt posts I have ever read. They are always spiritual and uplifting while encouraging you to do with a little less.

I'm not going to go through my friends' blogs. They are generally family related and if you want to know about my friends, you can venture that way, but they aren't necessarily interested in the same things as me. For some that may be an attractive proposition.

Have a good weekend, and don't forget to stop by the Mugwump's blog to make a simple comment.

Parenting

I must say I find television very educational. The minute somebody turns it on, I go to the library and read a good book.

Groucho Marx

I don't remember this problem when we had our second child, but our oldest seems to be jealous. On some levels, this is an incredibly complex situation, on other levels it all turns back to simplicity.

So here's the problem. The Mugwump has a growing tendency of sitting on Six-Pense. It's really pretty agressive and generally results in a crying 2 year old. So why does he do this? Because innevitably he gets in trouble. That's what he wants is attention, and he gets it when he sits on a younger brother, or pokes a brother in the eye.

What's the solution? We started sending the Mugwump to his room without toys. If he can't play nicely with his brothers, a natural consequence would be for him to not be able to play with his brothers. That was an OK idea, but it increased the jealousy and there is no way to send a kid to his room without giving him attention and then giving him additional attention when he gets out of his room. And what if he misbehaves in his room, or refuses to stay in there? He gets further attention. It didn't work out well.

It was time for parents to regroup. What is the main underlying problem? Oldest son didn't feel as loved as the others. So the solution ends up being quite simple. Show him that we love him just as much as the others. Instead of dealing out consequences, we've taken to preemtive displays of love.

How crazy is it that showing love worked so well at improving the behavior of a child? I don't know, but I would bet that this same principle could work in many different situations.

Symptoms

A man is rich in proportion to the number of things he can afford to let alone.

Henry David Thoreau

I was parusing the British Medical Journal yesterday and I ran into an article that you should read. Don't worry, it's short. Check it out. I know, I come across links all the time and the author suggests that I go there. I never do. This one is really worth it, so I suggest that you head that way. It's the one entitled, 'climate change only a symptom'.

It's a brief by Dominic C. Horne. I don't know anything about him, but based on his comment and the fact that he reads BMJ, so he's likely a physician. So this guy calls global warming a symptom. A symptom of what? Oh, don't worry, we'll get there, but I want to look at other symptoms. Dr. Horne suggests that depression is another major symptom that comes on as a result of global climate change. Interesting. OK, I want to expand the list of symptoms: Laziness, sedentary living, cardiovascular disease, obesity, diabetes, stroke, social anxieties, and the list could go on for quite some time.

In order to emphasize my point, I want take a moment to discuss a symptom. If you have the flu or a cold, you can't see the flu or the cold. It's a microscopic organism attacking your immune system. What you see is excess mucous, coughing, diarhea, vomiting, etc. You know what I'm talking about, we've all been there. So what do you do to make the virus go away? Nothing. You can take vitamin C to boost your immune system, you can take echinacea, but there is no evidence that it does anything. You can get a vaccine early in the season to give your body a preview of what it will be facing later in the year, but that's not 100% and in our little analogy, we obviously haven't vaccinated the earth. So what do we do? We take a cough syrup to alleviate the cough, Pepto Bismal to take care of the gastro-intestinal distress, and an antihistamine to alleviate the mucous problem. Does it work? It may alleviate the symptoms, but the flu or cold is still there and until your body has combatted the virus, you will have to continue to treat the symptoms.

So have you gone back and read the article yet in hopes of finding out what global warming is a symptom of? Here it is, global warming is a symptom of global capitalism. So the demand for stuff is the underlying cause of many of the world's ills. So what would happen if everyone stopped buying stuff? Well, there wouldn't be a demand to make cheap stuff in China, so they would be putting out a lot less polution. If we could decrease our demand for leather, meat and junk food we could decrease methane production (a greenhouse gas) significanly and we could also decrease our corn production so that we could grow something else, like trees or vegetables. If we as humankind drastically decreased consumption it would dramatically change things.

I'm not so naive as to think that all of the changes would be easy or even desirable. The economy would tank, leaving some major issues to be resolved. I'm not an economist, I should stop there, but I do recognize that it would drastically upset our current economy. But that brings me to question what would happen if we continue to consume at our current rates. I don't think the economy will be able to handle that. $100/barrel oil? I'm thinking that something is going to snap. Our current consumeristic ways are not sustainable, we're going to run out of the stuff we need to make cheap goods or we're going to cause other problems that are even more difficult to solve.

As an aside, Heather and Earl, this is my problem with investing. My perception of a solution would devastate many stocks. Alternatively, I believe that continuing as we are now will also result in devastated stock values. I do own stocks. I know that historically stocks have been good investments. I like the way they work, it makes sense. Boy, can I foresee them coming down in a blaze of glory in several different scenarios.

I'm not going to propose any solutions today, I feel that is what I try to do every day. I really like the idea of many of the ills of the world being considered symptoms to one great underlying cause. I think we see where the problem lies and it is time to start working to heal the world.