A tour of parenting (and educating) cultures with two kids

GloboGirls YouTubers Harper and Lyra celebrate the hard-to-describe beverage they came to appreciate while living and learning in New Zealand

GloboGirls YouTubers Harper and Lyra celebrate the hard-to-describe beverage they came to appreciate while living and learning in New Zealand

Well, even as I know I need to devote less time to mucking around on YouTube, Twitter, and the wonderful world of the web generally . . . sometimes it’s just so interesting! This week I decided to check in on Slate writer Dan Kois, who is spending all of 2017 traveling the world with his wife and two daughters for a book project, tentatively titled How to Be a Family. I used to enjoy listening to Dan on the parenting podcast Mom and Dad Are Fighting, until he left to pursue his traveling and writing project.

In part, this Media Monday is a recommendation to be on the lookout for the book because Dan is a lively, slightly curmudgeony writer whose insights about traveling, learning, and enjoying life with kids are bound to be fascinating. Unfortunately, the book is not due out until 2019! But as I was searching for the latest interviews with Dan (see below) to find out how his odyssey is shaping up, I found a terrific little surprise: the Kois kids, Lyra and Harper, have their own YouTube channel, called GloboGirls, where they are recording their adventures and the education they’re getting as their parents take them hopping from New Zealand to the Netherlands to Costa Rica to Kansas, with side trips to Hawaii and Dubai! So far, the girls have lived in and attended school in Wellington, New Zealand, and have just recently moved to the Netherlands.

In New Zealand, kids at Harper’s school took their shoes off before entering the classroom. At Lyra’s school, where kids of many ages are mixed together, she was greeted by a traditional Maori welcome ceremony. Yes, I’m a little jealous.

Dan says that he chose to go to places where families are good at things that his family is not so good at. I really like that as a reason for travel! So in New Zealand, that meant living life mostly outdoors. Maybe in the Netherlands it will be living life mostly on bikes? With tulips? We’ll see . . .

Take a listen and look at the Kois family chronicles:


Shelley Sperry

 

Media Monday: “Our grade book is the real world.” Learners take control.

“It’s time for education to be transformed,” say the founders and curators of Trailblazers, a new journal about what’s happening in learner-centered education right now. Of course, we couldn’t agree more. But what’s worth noting and celebrating about this manifesto is that is it written, edited, and designed by students themselves. They plan to publish once each semester.

Anya Smith-Roman, Kaylyn Winters, and Abigail Emerson are all students at Atlanta’s Mt. Vernon Institute for Innovation (MFIVI), which is linked to Mt. Vernon Presbyterian School. As part of a unique “innovation diploma” project, the students and their friends are energetically doing all the things alternative education is about: They’re connecting with community members and entrepreneurs. They’re making choices about their own learning and creating something new and all their own. They are declaring that they want to “blur the line between school and the real world and leave the world better than we found it.”

At MVIFI, the emphasis is consistently on getting out in the community to act and interact. “Our grade book is the real world,” says 10th-grader Brady Vincent. Brady is an entrepreneur who has consulted with outside organizations and is now working on a backpack with modular, interchangeable parts.

The first issue of Trailblazers includes a look at a recent learner-centered education conference through interviews with participants. Education Reimagined'sPioneer Lab program hosted the conference in Washington, DC, last fall, with more planned for this year.

Also in the journal: Neel Pujar, now in college at UC San Diego, talks about his experiences working on Design39Campus, a unique K-8 learning environment within a traditional public school district in San Diego. And New Zealander Kim Mi Yeoh writes about blending her interests in animals, architecture, and activism against factory farming in Auckland while studying at  Hobsonville Point Secondary School. Cali Ragland of Perkiomen Valley High School in Pennsylvania explains how she is pursuing a way to enhance curiosity in education and approaching it as a design challenge:

We identified Curiosity . . . as an important component and aspect of learning. We determined that this was an important quality for learning that is often not included in education, and, as a result, we are now trying to determine how a system of education can include Curiosity to better meet the needs of the 21st-century learner.

For more information about learner-centered education, take a look at the Mount Vernon Institute for Innovation and at Education Reimagined, a national organization promoting learner-centered approaches. And check out the video below:

Shelley Sperry
 

Media Monday: Wow! This is your brain on shows about science!

Nate Butkus Show about Science.jpg

There are now so many great podcasts geared toward curious kids that it’s becoming hard to keep up! Podcasts are so great for car trips, both short and long, because they can spark lots of new topics for conversation and learning–and can often touch our emotions or make us laugh, too.

I thought I’d do a quick rundown of a few science-oriented pods you may not have checked out yet, because there’s a new one out today that looks like a lot of fun: NPR’s Wow in the World.

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Although individual local NPR stations have long produced content for kids, this is actually the first venture for the national public radio network. Hosts Guy Raz and Mindy Thomas combine forces in episode one to bring science, technology, and all things innovative to elementary-school-age kids, including what early humans ate and whether saying “thank you” can make you healthier. And it looks like each show will feature a few questions to talk about afterward and some extra reading for kids whose curiosity is really in overdrive.
 

I feel a little like I wasted some crucial entrepreneurial time in kindergarten and first grade since learning about six-year-old Nate Butkus, who has been hosting his own Show About Science podcast for more than a year. Nate interviews scientists about everything from lava lamps to genetics. He is charming and gets right to the heart of the matter with every question.

Recently, worlds collided when Nate did a show from KPCC in Southern California in order to interview the host of Brains On and see a Tesla coil in action. Brains On! is an American Public Media podcast that explores fun, sciencey topics such as the Science of Slime and How Do Pianos Work. Adults host and kids co-host the episodes, which run around 20 minutes.

But Why has a great hook: Kids ask the questions (But Why Do Dogs Have Whiskers? Who Was the First Person?) and a parade of experts answers them each week. The show originates from Vermont Public Radio.
 

And whatever you do, don’t forget about our own Austin-based Tumble, which we’ve raved about before and was voted one of the best of 2016 on iTunes. They have a super newsletter that rounds up lots of science and other pod recommendation for kids.

Let us know if there are any podcasts you want to share!


Shelley Sperry

Media Monday: A very alt alternative to college draws critics and fans

If you’re interested in keeping up with what’s new in the education tech world, the EdSurge podcast often introduces listeners to the latest trends and debates through lively discussions with experts and advocates. That’s the case with their latest episode, which covers a for-profit alternative to college called MissionU, which I hadn’t heard of elsewhere.

The MissionU program, which takes only a year to complete, is designed especially for young people who are ready to jump into a career immediately rather than exploring subjects through the traditional liberal arts and sciences curriculum of a four-year college or university or a two-year community college.

One particularly intriguing aspect of the program, which is based in the highly entrepreneurial San Francisco area, is that it requires no tuition upfront, but instead asks for payment after students are earning income. According to MissionU’s website:

There are no upfront costs for MissionU; we only get paid when you do. Once you're earning at least $50,000, you'll pay back 15% of your income for the first three years.

Take a listen to the pro and con discussion on the EdSurge podcast, and see what you think about this highly experimental approach.


Shelley Sperry
 

Media Monday: “Care and concern for Texas kids, not a cheese sandwich”

Children should never be shamed when their family falls on hard times. If a family loses the ability to pay for lunch their child should receive care and concern, not a cheese sandwich.

—Celia Cole, CEO, Feeding Texas


In the rush of news stories that fly by via TV, radio, social media, and in traditional magazines and newspapers, one that captured a lot of attention recently was New Mexico’s ban on “lunch shaming.” A lot of us were shocked to discover how often kids are subjected to humiliation of various types because they are unable to pay for their lunch at school.

We often see statistics about the high percentage of public school students who receive free or reduced-price lunches, but not as much about those who are not signed up for those programs but still find they can’t pay for a standard hot lunch when family circumstances suddenly change. School districts might require these students to do chores in exchange for food, toss unpaid-for food in the trash, or serve the kids cold cheese sandwiches, all practices that may single children out for taunting or worse by their peers. New Mexico’s Hunger-Free Students’ Bill of Rights Act, signed April 6, 2017, strives to ensure that all kids have access to the same nutritional lunch without shaming of any kind.

In Austin and school districts across the country, thousands of people responded to these stories and campaigns via Facebook, Twitter, and blogs, with generous donations to pay off school lunch debts. As of April 11, Addie Broyles reported that all of Austin ISD’s school lunch debt was paid off —at least temporarily. AISD food services director Anneliese Tanner said that the district serves about 700 “courtesy” (unpaid) meals to students each school day, which costs about $350,000 annually.

Dallas ISD takes another route, as it declares on its website: “Breakfast, lunch, and after school meals are FREE to all students. . . . Our goal is to provide nutrition to students that fuels successful learning.”

Texas State Representative Helen Giddings (D-Dallas) responded to the media attention on this topic by pressing the legislature to pass HB 2159, a bill that defines minimum standards for all Texas public schools when a student’s lunch account runs out.

Giddings says, “I have filed HB 2159 to address this situation and ensure that every Texas child is well-nourished and focused on their education, not their next meal. Let us leave finances to the adults and keep our kids focused on actualizing their wildest dreams."

Currently there are no guidelines to ensure that children whose lunch accounts run out of money will not be stigmatized with lower-quality food or identified in the lunch line, and there is no requirement that schools contact families to check whether those children are eligible for free or reduced-price lunches.

Stay up to date onthe progress of HB 2159 here or by contacting Rep. Giddings’s office or Feeding Texas, a nonprofit network of food banks advocating for a hunger-free Texas.

Another group that tackles hunger among Austin families is Keep Austin Fed, which “rescues” surplus food from the thousands of commercial kitchens in the city and gives it to people who need it.

Both Feeding Texas and Keep Austin Fed happily welcome donations.

And in case you missed it back in January, check out the inspiring story of Kealing middle-schooler Ian McKenna, who grows veggies to donate to hungry families and the Central Texas Food Bank.


Shelley Sperry

Media Monday: Come on, bring the noise! Girls rock, and so do boys

The clatter and crowds of SXSW are gone, spring is here, and that means it’s really time to get the kids signed up for summer camps, before they fill up. The number and variety of music-related camps in Austin is pretty overwhelming, and it’s not possible to talk about them all, but here’s a sampling that may get you started.

Most of the music camps in and around Austin lean toward rock and allow young musicians to improve their skills, play in bands, and learn a little about recording and mixing music, sometimes with a little songwriting thrown in. Rock camps include the intimate Eastside Music Summer Camp, the much larger University of Texas Longhorn Music Camps, Lone Star School of Music’s Little Rock Camp, Band Aid School of Music’s Summer Rock Camp, Rock Lab School of Music Camps, and of course, the Austin School of Rock camps.

If you’re into empowering girls with guitars and amps, check out the Girls Rock Austin summer camps. Theyre operated by a nonprofit dedicated to diversity and music education.

Beyond these staples of headbanging summer fun, there are a few smaller camps that you may want to investigate too:

Blue Frog School of Music offers songwriting, performance, and recording camps in its homey location near the Austin Waldorf School. 

Velocity Music Academy has a wide variety of camps for all ages, focused on learning to play the piano, guitar, violin, and other instruments.

Orpheus Academy of Music Summer Camps are offered all summer and range from world music to broadway to introductory instrument classes.

TexArts camps focus on musical theater.

Paramount Theatre hosts a small songwriting camp for kids in grades 6–10.

Creative Action, a nonprofit group of teacher-artists, has a variety of art- and music-themed summer camps planned for this year, including Broadway or Bust and The Studio: Performer camp, all about writing, mixing, and performing music.

If you live near beautiful Wimberley, Agua Fresca Studios camps all combine visual art with music. They’ve got a Ukelele and Drum Camp for ages 9–12, a Music Camp for ages 10 and up, and an Art and Music Extravaganza camp for little ones 6–8 years old.

For kids who love percussion instruments, Ratamacamp offers camps at area public schools for middle and high schoolers.

The Austin Girls’ Choir has an early June camp for beginning singers and a mid-June camp for advanced singers. Both introduce girls to many music genres, from classical to pop.

And if you have a kid who loves chamber music and wants to play in small groups, the Austin Chamber Music workshop is the place to be.

Most music camps in the area are day camps, but if your student wants an overnight experience you’ll want to explore Texas Jaam Camp on the Guadalupe River in the Hill Country in July. Music styles will range from bluegrass and cajun to jazz and Western swing.


Shelley Sperry