My dad called me on Saturday morning. He was so excited about what he had learned about Temple Grandin he just had to share. And I'm glad he did.
Dr. Grandin is an insightful person--due in large part to her incredibly visual method of thinking which is tied to her autism. Her TED talk contains many interesting observations, but my favorite was her point that in order to get students "turned on" to learning "you've got to show kids interesting stuff."
Absolutely.
Sonlight's homeschooling curriculum is packed full of fascinating books. I have fond memories of listening to the books my mom read to us. But I also spent hours just looking through many of the Usborne books. These titles were brimming over with interesting stuff. In fact, The Usborne Time Traveler inspired me so much, I drew castles in my high school drafting class:
Beast's Castle: Jr. Year of High School
In other words: The best way to get kids (and adults) interested in something is to show them interesting stuff.
How fortuitous, then, to bump into this interesting video in my RSS reader today. Granted, Vi Hart talks crazy-fast and doesn't exactly explain what's going on in her videos...
But that, I believe, is the point. She's not trying to teach here, she's trying to show you interesting stuff.
And it is interesting stuff.
In fact, you may just find yourself looking up something about math after watching one of her videos.
~Luke Holzmann
Filmmaker, Writer, Empty Nester
