My Son is No Maker
He plays Madden Not Minecraft
If you read progressive educators or witnessed the edtech love fest at the “Computer Science For All” symposium hosted by the White House you would assume every student must learn code. Not true.
The only Pi my son has in his life is of the chicken pot variety, and he fights eating this as much as he would learning to program. No legos, no computers, it just isn’t his thing.
I am okay with that.
Its hard those who know me to believe, but I am not one who favors getting every kid into a boot camp. We attend golf camp, soccer camp, camp camp, but no coding club.
Our morning fills with Quick Pitch, Inside the NFL, or NHL tonight. The XBox only plays last year’s EA game of the season (buying new video games makes no financial sense). The nights we head to bed after setting our fantasy line ups. All of these are second to the chance to get outside and hit a ball. Any ball.
No lines of code. Just chalk lines. I am not sure how I became cursed with athletic children. Its probably regression to the mean… but I will support my three sons no matter what choices they make.
For my oldest its athletics over arduino.
Let’s think about the ambiguity around “21st century skills” such as creativity, communication, problem solving, etc. I posit that these skills emerge more on a ball field than a computer lab. Have you seen the beauty in a well executed play or the leadership skills that can emerge in team sports?
Yet in the world of revolves around “romancing the nerd.” Popular critics challenge the role of sports in schools. Sports must be bad becuase they don’t “disrupt” or simply “reinforce the dominant hegemony of the male narrative.”
I don’t buy it. Play On.
