Libraries, Homeschooling and the Future of Learning
Wednesday, July 5th, 2023
How do I make each summer valuable, fun, memorable, but also something that accelerates their learning?
This question is a huge pain for me, because I don't know the answer.
My brain is partially atrophied by the many options of Summer Camp, which I think may ultimately become the default that we return to.
Why is that my preference?
There are so many options that they can take, and I am assuming that the specialization means they are getting excited and dedicated teachers. Because there are market forces at work, they have to be good (although it also means they need to focus on marketing, not just results which can be hard to determine.)
This might be the future of education, where there's an overall marketplace where parents select with their kids on their areas of learning. This could very well be how college becomes Composable Education.
However, there's a part of me which was hoping that during this time I can help them discover their own interests because of boredom. Perhaps there is something to the concept of Boredom is the Mother of Invention.
So I am taking the kids to visit the top ten public libraries in San Francisco.
Thankfully, my youngest is already aware that these "top ten" lists aren't canonical. When I told her we are visiting the top ten public libraries, she said, "But that's according to the guy."
Anyway, I love public libraries. It's sad that in so many cities they are underinvested in, when they could be a vibrant hub of self-learning. The physicality of books in a library encourages a kind of discovery which I'm still not sure is possible online.
My hack has been to Take Public Transportation to go to the libraries.
One of the reasons is to help, in a little way, them to discover the city, even if slightly passively by looking out the window. I suppose they could do that while in the car, but they are so focused on creating their music playlists.
I have a feeling that public transportation could end up going the way of Uber Shuttles as a Public Good.
But giving them just a sense of autonomy, and also me a slight break from driving, watching for traffic, stressing about parking -- gives me a tiny break as we prepare for the day. Yes, it's longer -- it took almost an hour and the little one got antsy. But the beauty of today's is the stop was literally outside of the library's entrance.
Anyway, libraries could and should become a resource for homeschooling. These can act as Social Schelling Points or places for high-probability of meeting the likeminded. I like how in the children's sections the primary subjects are easy to access, and if I could encourage a greater sense of discipline, they could get books from different topics (perhaps by day of the week).
But the frustration is my kids don't have the motivation to do this.
I am thankful they can bring whatever kid graphic novel or fantasy novel in the case of the older one to just read.
But what can stimulate intrinsic curiosity into the broader world?
This I do not know, and I wish I had some answers.
It feels very overwhelming. Like, there are books that I could read (I have one in my Kindle only partially read through) and what I need is an expert or someone who can just talk us through it.
I feel like I am failing in a big way because I am charting unknown territory and this terrifies me.
But I sense I am heading in the right direction based on these principles:
- All learning must be self-motivated, self-directed in the future
- Finding centers of excellence and knowledge with dense discovery will make the difference on acceleration and formation of connections
- Physicality will be important, even as we become more digitized and metaversed....I'm not exactly sure how it will pan out, but the concept of physical libraries with some kind of physical way to discover books or to handle books will not totally go away, and there may even be instances where it facilitates brain development.
The open questions and fears that I have are:
- I do not know how to foster motivation. That there might be other people with different approaches or personalities
- Exposure is just one part of the equation. So while they are exposed to knowledge through libraries, they are not exposed to peers who love to learn and explore. This might be where camps come in and they don't like camps and, as they get older, their resistance grows stronger. This might be area where I need to apply more pressure.
- Bleeding edge -- as much as I try to get them into ChatGPT and to use the latest AI tools (even for things like video making) -- for whatever reason, they aren't grabbing onto them. This means they are surfing on the bleeding edge, and it is in this regard that I feel libraries are lagging behind.
So what are the steps I want to explore to address this?
- Find someway to find other people, some community, or worse case, build my own. This is painful but I gotta find a way and fast.
- Bleeding edge -- man, I wish that Mr Beast actually introduced them to some really cutting edge stuff -- maybe it is to do it with the kids and make our own Mr Beast style education? I just don't know!
- Can I find just one parent somewhere? Can I spend time dedicated to get my knowledge up to speed rather than breaking it up into small pieces?
I don't know the answer.
I think the bones are there: public transit, public libraries, letting boredom be a forcing function for them as much as I can (I do let them use the iPad for drawing after at least a book has been read.)