Tinkering School

Well I will start off by giving you my opinion on Gever Tulley video. I thought his idea of teaching these children how to work like this is great, he is letting them make their own mistakes on the projects and teaching them problem solving skills. He doesn't tell the kids how to do things so when they finish a project they can feel well accomplished on what they achieved. These children get to decide on what they want to make and how they want to make it, which is very different than the schooling system now-a-days. In schools now the teachers give you projects and you have to follow strict rules on how to make it. That in my opinion is stifling creativity in the younger kids today. Anther thing I felt was great about his approach at teaching was that when the kids got stuck on a problem he let them take a break and decorate the unfinished project, allowing them to take a step back and relax made it easier for them to clear their minds and figure out a solution to the problem. This my also help them to never give up, most times if you get stuck on a problem and you stress about it you just give up to make it easy on yourself. But this way they learn that solutions will just come and not to just drop the thing all together.

I would love to go to a school with this approach, I think I learn better through examples and working things out visually so this seems to be right up my ally. I think all kids should be able to do something like this. Kids today are to sheltered because parents are to scared bad things will happen to them or they will get hurt sometimes. What they don't know that sheltering your kids like that is keeping them from having a lot of fun. And it also keeps them from learning valuable skills that would actually help them in the long run when they are adults.

Weird but fun..

Costumes, role playing, and adult like comedy skits these are only some of the things the Renaissance fair had to offer over the Labor Day weekend. Sounds pretty weird right? Well I am with you on that, I was one of those people about a week ago. I never thought I would go to anything like that, since I don't really get into role playing and all that good stuff. When I went home for the weekend my family surprised me about this little outing. I wasn't to happy with it at first, but it was actually a super great time. Of course the first thing I noticed about it was how many people were there. I would have never expected that many, we could barely find a place to park. Then the second which is the most noticeable was the costumes. My family and I had a lot of fun looking at all the men in tights and women in huge dresses, everyone talking like they just came out of a time portal. Two of my favorite things about this place were; the food and the comedy skits that played every half hour. I am completely addicted to chocolate so I was going to that stand every ten minutes, I must of eaten my body weight in chocolate that day. The skits were supposedly PG-13 but I wouldn't recommend any kids to go see  them, if you know what I mean. So really if your ever looking for something new and out of your comfort zone to try, go there it's surprisingly a good time.

A Little About Me

To start off my name is Angela O'Brien, but most people call me Angie. I was born and raised in Hastings, MN. This is the first time I am moving away from home so I am pretty excited. I have a off campus apartment with one of my friends, it's a really nice place right on the river. My birthday is August 15th which means I pretty much just turned 18. I was always the youngest person in my grade. Right now I am here at Western for the nursing program, but I'm kind of debating on that right now so I don't know what I will be doing after I get my generals done with. My favorite thing to do in my spare time is listen to music and go to concerts, I like a really wide variety of music so I will listen to like anything. My favorite bands to listen to are A Day to Remember and Mayday Parade, which I got to see both of them in concert and they were amazing! Back home in Hastings is my family and my dog, his name is Rusty and he is a brittney spaniel. Before I moved out I lived with my mom, my sister and my nephew. My family is really close so I have to make trips home at least once a month to see them. I am a summer baby so I hate winter and I refuse to go out if it's cold. In the summer I spend most of my time at the beach or at my family's summer cabin. I just lay around, swim, wake boarding, knee boarding, and a lot of boating.:)