We left for Michigan yesterday and ended up driving straight through. The original plan was to space it out over two days. We figured we’d leave at 9:00 AM to avoid the bulk of Atlanta’s morning rush hour traffic, drive to a museum outside of Knoxville, spend a couple of hours there, and then go as far as the kids could stand it before checking into a hotel. We were prepared to stop a million times for bathroom and snack breaks. Our only real hope was to get a little north of Cincinnati before stopping for the night.
The kids were awesome though, traffic was light, and there was only one relatively short delay due to construction. Hazel’s three hour nap was very helpful too. By 8:00 PM we were well past Cincinnati so with the kids’ assurance that they could hang in there, we decided to go for it. We rolled into Helen’s parents’ house at about 12:30. It wasn’t a bad drive at all.
I must say the dvd player really came in handy. SpongeBob, Little Foot, and Pokemon helped kill large chunks of time. No regrets on that purchase.
Helen and I are reading this great book called Don’t Bother Me Mom- I’m Learning
by Marc Prensky. The basic premise is that contemporary children’s brains are wired differently due to a lifetime’s exposure to technology, especially with video games. Prensky calls kids “Digital Natives” for this reason and the rest of us are “Digital Immigrants,” having had to assimilate the technological advances of the past twenty or so years. He argues with research based evidence that not only are (most) video games entirely appropriate for children, they are immensely beneficial to their personal development and future success. From the blurb on the back:
Prensky believes that kids are so attracted to these games because they are learning about important “future” things, from collaboration, to prudent risk taking, to strategy formulation and execution, to complex moral and ethical decisions.”
It’s a fascinating book and a great justification for me and the boys to play more games, heh heh. Joking aside, he mentions a company called The Lightspan Partnership that spent over $100 million in the 1990s to develop video games to reinforce schools’ curriculum. These weren’t the digitalized drill and kill worksheets that describe most “educational” software. They were real games to be played on the Sony PlayStation. Studies showed that the Lightspan games were effective and kids really did learn from them.
I tried to find more information about the project online but there’s barely anything out there. It’s like a big secret or something. Wikipedia doesn’t even have an entry for Lightspan! This page had a little summary and a list of the games. I suspect No Child Left Behind, with its emphasis on federal money tied to students’ test scores, played a significant role in school districts losing interest in what amounts to a radical approach to learning. Let’s face it, most adults’ perceive video games as a waste of time at best. This person’s enlightened view sums it up nicely. Imagine if a district spent hundreds of thousands of dollars on video games and test scores didn’t improve. The backlash would be tremendous.
The Lightspan games never sold retail. The only way to get them was if your child’s school district purchased the program. You can however find them on eBay for relatively little money. We’re intrigued by the idea of these educational games and are very seriously considering picking some up. I want a PlayStation 2 anyway because they’re inexpensive and have a whole back catalog of great games for cheap. Dashiell and Ray are wild about video games but not exactly enthusiastic about sitting down to learn skills the old fashioned way. Why not see if the Lightspan approach works as a supplement to their homeschool education? And if the guinea pigs show positive results, I could possibly work these games into my classroom too.
So I’m sitting on the couch playing video games when I hear the boys say, “There’s a snake in the house!,” from the bathroom where they were supposed to be brushing their teeth. My initial thought was that it was one of the zillion tricks they play each day. I went along with it like I always do and walked back to “investigate.” But sure enough, there was a snake. A real one! A four foot long black rat snack that had them trapped in the bathroom. I told them to stay where they were and ran for the camera, ha ha. They aren’t venomous so I knew there was no danger. Snapped a few pictures and then corralled it out of the house with a broom and dust pan. It took about twenty minutes because I was jumpy and freaked whenever it turned my way.
I think it urinated or sprayed some sort of warning scent. Kind of smelled like burnt hair or an electrical fire. I really thought something was on fire at first and had to stop snake wrangling for a minute to make sure there wasn’t. Another interesting thing it did was vibrate its tail. Made kind of a buzzing noise as it hit against the wall, like a rattlesnake wannabe or something.
Whew! I’m seeing “snakes” all over the place now. Every black cord is suspect. What a crazy experience.
We’ve softened our stance on the dvd player in the car issue. Before it was, “That’s so stupid, the kids can just look out the window, blah blah blah.” But with our annual trip to Michigan quickly approaching, including the 11+ hour drive each way, we decided maybe an electric babysitter wouldn’t be such a bad idea.
Last year Dashiell and Ray bought a Gameboy Advance for the ride there and Grandma bought them a matching one for the return trip. Video games will definitely keep them occupied for hours. (I’m kind of jealous actually.) Hazel is another story. Having just turned three, she’s very much in the high maintenance category. She will watch movies though so we’re hoping to block out some large chunks of time with sustained viewing and naps.
Yes, we broke down and bought a portable DVD player today. We have no intention of using it for anything other than extended periods of time in the car. So we won’t be putting on Maisy or Pokemon to do errands around town, but probably will for trips to Athens or Atlanta. A minimum drive time of an hour might be a good rule of thumb.
And not that we needed a bunch of reasons to justify our purchase but there are some other factors we considered. The most important is that we’re taking the car to Michigan instead of the van. The kids will be crammed in the back seat together instead of spread out over a couple of benches. Hazel is still in a car seat too so that makes even less room for everybody.
Also, we’ve been up and down I-75 so many times there’s really not a whole lot of surprises left as far as scenic views go. Parts of Georgia, Tennessee, and Kentucky are beautiful and have many pause worthy moments. But five hours of Ohio and a couple more in Michigan are beyond dull. No one will miss anything with their eyes glued to a screen!
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