We’ve been homeschooling for the last 4 years. Games (from Role Playing Games to Wargames) have been a huge part of our days. Along with art, activity, empathy, and a dab of traditional school stuff. Hell, last month we went to Nottingham from the US to see England, but mainly for Warhammer World, and called it school.
With our eldest deciding he wants to return to public school for 9th grade we’ve been leaning a little more heavily into the skills he’s going to need to function in the (admittedly good) public school available to us. But we’ve been real clear that we’re more concerned that he learns to work well with others, forms connections, and tries out new forms of learning than he blows the top off his math scores. He’ll be taking culinary arts and auto mechanics for electives so hopefully he’s fully on board.
All of that is a long way of saying I think you’re right and we fail to prepare our kids at our own peril. Thanks for your thoughts on this.
Thanks Deron, have you found good homeschooling hubs where the kids can make friends? For me this is almost the only major gap that I would like to fill. It’s a scale challenge because ideally you would want X number of homeschooled kids nearby at similar-ish ages but the overall numbers of homeschoolers are so small that it doesn’t work out.
We found one of the hardest transitions to homeschooling to be actually listening to our kids when they said what they wanted/needed. Both are really secure in small social lives. They have friends in the traditional “kids from the neighborhood” way, but they weren’t interested in a homeschool hub and pushed back hard on the idea. So that got nixed.
Our two boys are 20 months apart and each other’s best friend (though they would deny it, of course). Because we’re not “ideological” homeschoolers (meaning we’re not trying to hide them from the world or vice-versa) they still get lots of opportunities to socialize and they’re really good with adults. (My then 11 year old was walking up to 50 year old men at wargame tournaments, explaining his army, throwing down hard, and demonstrating better sportsmanship than I was).
But our situation is a little unique in that I run 24hr on/48hr off shifts at work and my wife ended up staying home during COVID to take care of the kids/run homeschool. She’s got a PhD in Biology and has run and developed learning curriculums so the kiddos aren’t exactly lacking from intellectual stimulation at home.
We’ve been homeschooling for the last 4 years. Games (from Role Playing Games to Wargames) have been a huge part of our days. Along with art, activity, empathy, and a dab of traditional school stuff. Hell, last month we went to Nottingham from the US to see England, but mainly for Warhammer World, and called it school.
With our eldest deciding he wants to return to public school for 9th grade we’ve been leaning a little more heavily into the skills he’s going to need to function in the (admittedly good) public school available to us. But we’ve been real clear that we’re more concerned that he learns to work well with others, forms connections, and tries out new forms of learning than he blows the top off his math scores. He’ll be taking culinary arts and auto mechanics for electives so hopefully he’s fully on board.
All of that is a long way of saying I think you’re right and we fail to prepare our kids at our own peril. Thanks for your thoughts on this.
Thanks Deron, have you found good homeschooling hubs where the kids can make friends? For me this is almost the only major gap that I would like to fill. It’s a scale challenge because ideally you would want X number of homeschooled kids nearby at similar-ish ages but the overall numbers of homeschoolers are so small that it doesn’t work out.
We found one of the hardest transitions to homeschooling to be actually listening to our kids when they said what they wanted/needed. Both are really secure in small social lives. They have friends in the traditional “kids from the neighborhood” way, but they weren’t interested in a homeschool hub and pushed back hard on the idea. So that got nixed.
Our two boys are 20 months apart and each other’s best friend (though they would deny it, of course). Because we’re not “ideological” homeschoolers (meaning we’re not trying to hide them from the world or vice-versa) they still get lots of opportunities to socialize and they’re really good with adults. (My then 11 year old was walking up to 50 year old men at wargame tournaments, explaining his army, throwing down hard, and demonstrating better sportsmanship than I was).
But our situation is a little unique in that I run 24hr on/48hr off shifts at work and my wife ended up staying home during COVID to take care of the kids/run homeschool. She’s got a PhD in Biology and has run and developed learning curriculums so the kiddos aren’t exactly lacking from intellectual stimulation at home.
Games are centered around the four things you propose for “education optimized for 2040.”
Physical games?
Games games