Pictured to the left is our "littlest" man holding one of his big brother's new "screen tokens." Here's where all of this comes from...At the 2009 Midwest Home School Convention in Cincinnati, Ohio, lecturer Susan Wise Bauer talked about "screens" and education. Dr. Bauer is clearly an advocate of the discipline of reading and the written word (see www.welltrainedmind.com), but she used two Macintosh laptops during her presentations (looked like one MacBook and one MacBook Air) and spoke with some degree of fluency about the media world. She also manages an eleborate web site or two, with discussion groups, so the woman is not anti-screen.
Among the many things that caught our attention in her presentations was the "token for screen time" policy that the Bauers use in their home school. Each child gets a certain amount of "screen time" per week, and these blocks of time are represented by tokens that are turned-in to the home educator.
Among the many things that caught our attention in her presentations was the "token for screen time" policy that the Bauers use in their home school. Each child gets a certain amount of "screen time" per week, and these blocks of time are represented by tokens that are turned-in to the home educator.
We adopted this policy as soon as we came home from the conference.
The classical curriculum demands that the "reading muscles" are well-toned, but part of the goal of a "neo-classical" education is to help a child learn how to gather information, evaluate it, and competently articulate an opinion. In the modern world, this also means learning the ability to gather and evaluate digital media. Clearly, a good neo-classical education in the modern world demands the teaching and use of computers, etc. Yet, the fact is that absorbing information from a screen (image-based) is much easier than reading (text-based); that is, screan viewing (and screen learning), as Dr. Bauer made clear, does not exercise the brain in the same way that book-learning does.
The Bauer's "token for screen time" idea is a great policy for any home. It helps children learn to discipline their use of time in front of the computer or television; thus, in conjunction with an education that demands the disciplined exercise of the "reading muscles," it helps to train a mind well for the vagaries of digital life.
The classical curriculum demands that the "reading muscles" are well-toned, but part of the goal of a "neo-classical" education is to help a child learn how to gather information, evaluate it, and competently articulate an opinion. In the modern world, this also means learning the ability to gather and evaluate digital media. Clearly, a good neo-classical education in the modern world demands the teaching and use of computers, etc. Yet, the fact is that absorbing information from a screen (image-based) is much easier than reading (text-based); that is, screan viewing (and screen learning), as Dr. Bauer made clear, does not exercise the brain in the same way that book-learning does.
The Bauer's "token for screen time" idea is a great policy for any home. It helps children learn to discipline their use of time in front of the computer or television; thus, in conjunction with an education that demands the disciplined exercise of the "reading muscles," it helps to train a mind well for the vagaries of digital life.
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