January 18th, 2010 | 
Author: Gever Tulley is a hero of mine. His 2007 TED lecture, 5 Dangerous Things for Kids, was a revelation.
Tulley is the founder of The Tinkering School:
The Tinkering School offers an exploratory curriculum designed to help kids – ages 8 to 17 – learn how to build things. By providing a collaborative environment in which to explore basic and advanced building techniques and principles, we strive to create a school where we all learn by fooling around. All activities are hands-on, supervised, and at least partly improvisational.
Grand schemes, wild ideas, crazy notions, and intuitive leaps of imagination are, of course, encouraged and fertilized.
Imagine that! Learning through fooling around! Imagination that remains unsquashed! I’m surprised that the school authorities in the US haven’t taken out a contract on him. Kinds might start to expect more than learning by rote from their schooling. They might want to actually experiment in science class! The horror!
Anyway, as an outgrowth of the 2007 TED lecture, he’s just published a book: Fifty Dangerous Things (you should let your children do). I’ve ordered it along with some other stuff from William Gurstelle on building backyard siege weapons. Bring your kids over this summer. We’ll have a grand old time. Leave the lawyers at home. They might have a stroke.
We coddle our kids too much. Lenore Skenazy was branded “America’s worst Mom” for allowing her 9-year-old to ride the subway on his own in NYC. I used to think that declining enrollment in Scouting in Canada was kids losing interest, but I’m not so sure any more. Parents worry about their kids being frightened. We had one boy who wasn’t allowed to come to camp without his Mom. He just doesn’t go to camp with the Scouts. How freaking sad is that?
Being a Cub leader is my way to help a few more kids than just my own learn about the wild world out there. The city is a crappy place to grow up, but if they’re never been to the woods, how will they ever find out? Our main leader has always had a no-compromise approach to programming the Pack and word gets around: we have kids who, technically, should be in other packs. But, they’re heard about all the stuff we get up to and want to come with us. Just wait until they find out that they’ll be poking about in a beehive in April. 
Posted in Life
I totally agree about kids today being overprotected. If I had not been sent away for 8 days every summer to 4-H Camp (which I LOVED, by the way), I never would have learned to build a lean-to, make a campfire, survive in the woods, and shoot a bow and arrow—-that’s right, I was 9 and I shot a bow and arrow and carried a camping knife and a hatchet through the woods!!! Also, I was made to run errands on my bike from one end of town to the other. And expected to be home on time, without stopping to dilly-dally or chat or play around. By the age of 9 I was riding all over town, and even over the Canadian border just to say hi to the Customs Officers! The world is a big place, but it doesn’t have to be a scary one. Not if you are prepared. And I believe that is something the Scouts say too?
“Be Prepared” is the worldwide motto for the Scouting movement, Susan. I’ve carried a knife in my pocket since I was 10. To school, to church, to Parliament. The only times I’ve ever had to stop was in the last few years when I wanted to get on a plane. Sigh.
I will order that as soon as I hit submit here. I had a wildly dangerous chemistry set as a kid.
We made gunpowder, for Christ’s sake.
My Dad gave me two of his Dad’s books when I was 10. They were issues of the Boy’s Own Annual from the 20’s and amongst the stories and cool stuff I found in them, there were numerous recipes for homemade fireworks. Dad took me to the drugstore to get what we needed and we were off. We never did get any of it to explode, but the flames and smoke were great!
Can you imagine walking in a drugstore and trying to buy sulphur and saltpetre now? Never mind a 10-year-old doing it.
They’d send him to Gitmo as a terrorist detainee.
I wonder: do you get frequent flyer miles on Air Rendition?
Got 50 Dangerous Things in the mail today from Amazon. Can’t wait to get started. Thanks for the tip.
Excellent! Mine hasn’t arrived yet.
oh my god gordo… this is a revelation to me… he’s my new hero to. if you had any idea how fed up i am with the craziness of protecting children. my childhood was all those things, we used to set fires in open fields and see how long we could wait before we had to put them out, later when the interstate went through our little hamlet, a local reservoir had to be pumped out and they left these floating pumps in the reservoir in the woods with 10 gallon jugs of gasoline and we used to set everything on fire… and look where all my pyromania has led me, in college i welded, forged, cast metal, fired kilns and blew glass. my friend and i stole his mom’s car when we were 13 and went joy riding in the country, got a flat tire, ruined the fender trying to change it in the dark (69 impala), turned it off a block from the house and gently rolled it back into the driveway. btw, i’ve already let sofia drive our car with her on my lap when she was 3. i haven’t been without a pocketknife since very young and my grandfather taught me how to sharpen it. anyway, i love this guy, got to get that book!
I’m all about “informed risk”, Jim. My boys tear around the neighbourhood on their own. Phil (12) takes Cameron (5) to the sledding hill a couple of blocks away. They go to the park on their own in the summer as well. What truly amazes me is the things that people choose to worry about. A co-worker has two boys (6&7) and thinks nothing of letting them tear around the back field on a large four-wheeler. They’re both driven to the door of the school every day, though. The world’s full of weirdos, don ya know. Sheesh.
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