Parent Gossip #1:

High achievers have lots of play time and ask questions

This is a newsletter for parents of 6 to 16-year-olds (and any other age) to share inspiration for weekend projects that change the world. If we want our kids to grow up confident and ready for the world of tomorrow, today’s play is a good place to start.

At Play with Power, we have a hypothesis that play is essential to engage with the world’s most serious problems, and our kids are experts on playing. Our mission is to have every child on the planet try at least once to solve a Big Problem that humanity faces.

We know parenting is hard, and we marvel at how every single human being in the world has a possibility to be a parent. You don’t have to wait for someone else more legit and more expert than you to tell you how to be a parent, or to change the world.

Learning to play

High achievers have lots of play time:

Next time I tell someone I homeschool and they say, “How do your kids learn math?” My response will be, “You send your kids to school? How do they learn to play?”

Power: Electrical

The boy who played with fusion:

Someone mentioned this 14-year-old kid from Texarkana, Arkansas, which is not exactly a hotbed of science in this country. But he’d just become one of only 32 people to build a nuclear fusion reactor themselves.

Tom Clynes tells a story of a prodigy, who inspired him to make the world a better place. That is, an adult learning from a child.

The important things

Children on the frontline: climate change & humanitarian crisis:

It is easy to feel impotent in the face of the scale and complexity of crises such as Syria.

And also really easy to ignore for busy parents.

The important things we don’t talk about

7 things you should know about Project Drawdown from Paul Hawken:

After discovering that no other plan existed in the world to actually reverse global warming trends, Paul and his team chose the title and reminded us all of the critical importance of bringing people and ideas together on a global scale.

So yes, just do it, whatever it is you must do. And you don't have to be the super expert to try something out. By being alive, you have a right to give it a shot. Yes, even you.

Asking questions

Why Peter Diamandis tells his kids to ask questions:

I live two blocks from my children's school, and when I am in town, one of my most precious moments is walking them to school in the morning. During the walk, I ask them what questions they have of me. The topics range from plants to black holes. I relish and admire their questions. When I drop them off, the last thing I say to them is, “Ask good questions today.”

Why? We are heading toward a world of a trillion sensors and ubiquitous AI -- a world where, a decade from now, we will all have some variant of JARVIS from Iron Man. In that world, you’ll be able to know anything you want, anytime you want. So the quality of the questions you learn to ask will be more important than memorized knowledge. In my humble opinion, helping your kids to think critically and to ask great questions is the most important lesson you can teach them.

Giving it a shot.

A few ways to make the world more awesome: A chat with Kid President:

Boring is easy. Everybody can be boring. But you’re gooder than that.

Power: Political

This strike is teaching our kids about fighting for what's right, integrity, social justice, and solidarity:

A letter from Kimya Dawson on Seattle’s teacher strike of 2015. When was the last time we teach our kids about fighting for what’s right?

Power: Human Relationships

Kids, would you please start fighting?:

The skill to get hot without getting mad — to have a good argument that doesn’t become personal — is critical in life. But it’s one that few parents teach to their children. We want to give kids a stable home, so we stop siblings from quarreling and we have our own arguments behind closed doors. Yet if kids never get exposed to disagreement, we’ll end up limiting their creativity.

Power: Math

DIY Synth Series Part 1 — The Exponential VCO:

Well, sort of not really the math part of exponential functions, but this badass commentor, AEKron says: “I built a PAIA road synth kit when I was a kid. It had two VCOs among other things.”

Power = Exponential

Playing: As A Grownup

The case for playing Fortnite with your kids:

Grown-ups are ashamed of how poorly we have handled our own transition into the digital era, and we’re taking it out on our kids.

Note: For the rest of us, "Fortnite" is a video game.

Pedagogy: Book

6 things science says kids need to succeed in education and business:

Can you explain, in simple terms, how kids go from everyday play to developing the sort of sophisticated collaboration and communication skills that will be so important to success in a 21st Century global economy? Can you break down the basics: what’s Executive Function? How does play foster Self-Regulation? And aren’t these precisely the competencies that will eventually lead to strong critical thinking skills?

Obviously, a redundant question.

Becoming Brilliant: What Science Tells Us About Raising Successful Children by Roberta Michnick Golinkoff and Kathy Hirsh-Pasek

Pedagogy: Play

Play and self-regulation: Lessons from Vygotsky:

Summary: it's very complicated. Academics don’t agree on what play is. Obviously more research must be done on playing.

PostScript #1

Issue #20: Play:

An entire magazine issue devoted to the philosophy of play, from New Philosopher.

PostScript #2

The American Journal of Play:

Apparently, play scholarship is a thing. An academic journal dedicated to play.

Find Out More

Curated by Play with Power:
Read something cool lately and would like to share with other parents around the world? Have a story about you and your kids solving Big Problems of humanity?
Drop a line to us@playwithpower.io, we MUST talk!

Our mission is to promote ambitious play and we were looking for you to make it happen.