1 Family Photo:
|
​Henrik Karlsson is one of my favorite dad-bloggers. Thinking about childhood education, he surveyed early biographies of 42 exceptional people, trying to distill common childhood themes that unlocked their exceptionality. He found the childhoods of most exceptional people included dedicated tutors, opportunities for apprenticeship, and an outstanding social milieu—people who became exceptional were surrounded by and interacted with exceptional adults.
How do I create an outstanding social milieu for my kids? I don't even have a social milieu. Outside of family, the person I talk to most frequently these days is probably the guy who takes orders at our favorite burrito place.
---
We did visit a friend in San Diego a couple weekends ago. It was fun. We played with trains, rode trains, and went to the train museum. Newsletter readers will notice this was...a lot like being at home.
Our friend also took the kids on a tour of his neighborhood. The tour including pulling up water covers so the kids could examine the cockroaches and crickets scurrying inside. One neighbor keeps chickens, so the kids played with chickens in his front yard. A railroad spike was laying around, so the neighbor Calvin a railroad spike. This was...less like being at home.
It's interesting to watch a mind make its impression on other minds. Calvin and Lawrence don't see sidewalks the same anymore. When we got home, they tried jamming their fingers in the hole on our water cover to pry it up (it turns out water covers here are much heavier than in San Diego).
These interactions grow kids' minds from the local maximum we're capable of as parents to some global maximum only they can discover.
​
In that vein: is there something you'd like to teach my impressionable kids? Fill out this form!!!
​Dear Internet: Do You Want To Teach My Kids?​
​Helping Bryan Caplan homeschool his children by Tyler Cowen​
​Education Amid Endless Online Screaming by Ben Sasse​
​Childhoods of exceptional people by Henrik Karlsson​
Fill out the form! >>> Dear Internet: Do You Want To Teach My Kids?​
--
Also, my book is available on Amazon here – or reply to this email and I'd love to gift you a copy.
Grab some time on my calendar to share a story from this week:
​Let's Chat!​
Book some time even if you don't know what you want to talk about:
​https://calendly.com/iamjoshknox​
Until next week,
​iamJoshKnox​​
Thoughts? Feedback?
😊Hit Reply and let me know😊
Hi! I am Josh Knox. Read more of me here: 👇
1 Family Photo:Bernoulli's Principle Lawrence experiencing Bernoulli's Principle at the SLO Children's Museum. Bernoulli's Principle states that as a fluid's velocity increases, its pressure decreases. It turns out air is a fluid—this insight helped the Wright brothers get their airplane off the ground. If you hold the end of a piece of paper and blow across the top, the other end will rise. The fast-moving air from your breath has lower pressure than the stationary air beneath the paper. The...
1 Family Photo:Kindergarten Transitions In 2021, California added a new grade to elementary school: TK. TK—Transitional Kindergarten—would be available to all four-year-olds in the state. However, scaling up takes time. In 2022, California offered TK to 25% of four-year-old Californians. Each year, California has offered TK to an increasing percentage of four-year-olds. Next year, in 2025, TK will finally be available to every four-year-old in the state—these intervening years have been...
1 Family Photo:Important Meeting I checked a box on his enrollment form, so Calvin had to take a language assessment test before starting school. Calvin is bilingual, though the state of California isn't concerned with how well he knows the Portuguese language—just "does he speak English good?" -- The evening before his language assessment, we were walking home from the park. The girl across the street was with us. As they walked side by side, Calvin turned to the girl: "You can hold my hand...