In response to John’s newsletter title, “Do our Children Learn Differently,” I had a couple of comments to make. 

Although I agree that the children of today learn differently than of children past, I don’t completely agree with it. I honestly believe that some children would have been much better off in the 70′s and 80′s had there been more technology.  My brother is a prime example of this and I know that he is not the only one out there.  I learn by repetition, I learn by “doing” rather than by reading how to do, I learn by someone teaching me. My brother learns in much the same way that my youngest son does and that is by simply “watching” something being done and then going off and doing it himself and “figuring it out”.  My brother would have never attended one day of public school if T4L had been around when he was young. 

I believe that with technology comes more options, I believe technology helps kids grasp things differently but the concepts are still the same only now instead of my mom saying to me and my brother “Go look it up in the encyclopedia”, I find myself saying “Go google that”….. While I believe that children do process things a bit differently, bottom line is learning styles are learning styles and just because my children have the wonderful opportunity that they have does not mean that they learn any different that we did; they just have more options.

My next point is about technology taking place of sports and outside.  I totally agree that my children do not head outside as soon as they are done with their school work the way that we did growing up.  We live on 70 acres and my kids should be outside exploring ALL the time with what they have available to them.  I do agree that on occasion I have to “force them” outside or have to join them when they do go outside so we can hike or what ever.  With that being said, my family spends very little time watching tv.  We are a computer family and we sit in the same room, each with our computers and enjoy each other’s company whether it be in an online game or doing our own thing “chatting”.  We spend the summers swimming in our pool and when company is here spend most of the time outside.  Yes, we do own (collectively in our family) every video game system available (with the exception of the ps3) but that also is (for the most part) done together.  So I guess that even though my kids don’t always “volunteer” to go outside, that is the way it is now and even though I dislike it, sometimes it is easier to accept it.  As a side note, my boys play soccer, roller blade, do karate and are cub scouts.  They are very active kids and even though I think they spend to much time on line, there are far worse things that they can be doing……  What would I change?  Probably them “wanting” to go out and play…   Is that going to happen?  We are working on it. :)

The last comment I have is about “putting the gameboys down in the car”.  Each of my boys have a game boy (you shocked?) and they will probably get a better hand held system this year for Christmas.  (shocked again?)  I don’t always agree that children should have game boys and when I see children at family functions, family activities or something like that it makes me angry.  I do think that there is nothing wrong with my kids playing their game in the car and because we are home schoolers we cram learning into every bit of their lives…..  Even in the car I am throwing something “educational” at them…  I would rather them spend a little bit of time zoning while driving down the road than sitting in their rooms playing!  Of course, my kids don’t abuse their game boys and can really “take them or leave them” so it is really not an issue for us but honestly everything we do revolves around their education and something being learned, discussed or shared so giving them some time in the car to just zone is not such a bad thing for our family……

Thanks for the newsletters John, I enjoy them!