Ben Franklin, the great American scientist, inventor,
and statesman once wrote:
"An investment in knowledge always pays the best interest"
I'd like to suggest a slight variation on that.
As I see it, an investment in interest
always pays off with the best knowledge.
Here in our Lifelong Kindergarten group,
we've seen over and over
the importance and the value
of people following their interests
and building on their passions.
When people work on projects they really care about
they are willing to work longer and harder
and persist in the face of challenges and obstacles.
It's not just that,
when people are following their interests, they're more
likely to make deep connections with new ideas
and to develop new ways of thinking.
Let me give you an example.
A few years ago, I was visiting one of our
Computer Clubhouse after school centers,
and I met a 13 year old boy named Leo
who loved playing video games.
At the Clubhouse, he learned how to use our Scratch
Programming Language to create his own games.
And, he proudly showed me a game he had created,
somewhat like this one where a big fish eats a little fish.
But the day I visited, Leo was also a little bit frustrated
because he knew the people would be interested in seeing the
score of the game and he couldn't figure out
how to show the score, he tried a few things and couldn't
figure it out.
So I showed a new feature of Scratch to Leo
a feature called variables.
And together, Leo and I created a new Scratch variable
called score in his game.
And by creating that variable,
it automatically set up a little box on the screen,
that showed the value of the score
and also created some new programming blocks.
Leo saw the new block change score by one,
and he knew exactly what to do.
He put it in his project where the big fish ate the
little fish,
then every time that happened, the score went up by one.
Leo was really excited and he reached out his hand to me,
and he said, thank you, thank you, thank you.
I was really happy that Leo was so pleased with his project
and what he had learned,
and then I started thinking, I wonder how many algebra
teachers are ever thanked by their students
for teaching them about variables.
Of course, that doesn't happen
because the way algebra is taught in schools,
doesn't really connect with kids interests.
But, the situation was different with Leo,
he really cared about variables,
because he cared about his game.
We see stories like this over and over in the Scratch community.
I remember a nine year old girl names Sarah
who created an animated book report
about Charlotte's Web.
A book they had read in her third grade class.
She went to make the animals go forward and back.
And, to do that she needed to learn about the math idea
of scaling and the art idea of perspective.
Now Sarah had to work long and hard on this,
Which she was willing to work hard,
because she really cared about making a better
animated story.
My mentor Seymour Papert used the term Hard Fun
to describe this type of learning.
A lot of teachers try to make lessons easy thinking
that kids want things to be easy.
But that's not the case.
Kids are willing to work hard, eager to work hard,
as long as they work on things that they really care about.
So how is it that educators can engage kids in hard fun?
We sometimes use the metaphor of low floor,
high ceiling
and wide walls.
It's important to create activities with a low floor,
make it easy for kids to get started.
And also a high ceiling, so they can work on more and more
complex and sophisticated projects over time.
But, a low floor and a high ceiling aren't enough.
We need to add another dimension.
Wide walls.
It's important to develop technologies and activities
that provide children with an opportunity to create a wide
range of different types of projects.
It's not good enough to have
a single pathway from the low floor
to the high ceiling.
We need multiple pathways,
wide walls.
We know that different children have different interests.
So if you want all children to be able to work on projects
they really care about,
we need those multiple pathways,
many different ways for kids to engage with their projects.
As we develop the Scratch language and community.
We really took wide walls into account.
We didn't make Scratch only for creating games, because
some kids like games, not all kids like games.
Scratch can also be used to make art, and music, and
animations, and stories, and simulations.
If you look on the Scratch website,
you see an incredible wide diversity of different
types of projects.
For us, that's the best indicator of success.
When we develop new technologies or workshops,
we're always looking to see the range of different
projects that result.
If all the projects end up looking alike,
we feel that something went wrong.
The walls weren't wide enough.
If we see a great diversity of projects
to us that's a sign of success.
Now if you teach kids or run workshops for kids
or develop materials for kids,
I hope you'll think about wide walls.
How can you widen the walls to make sure that all kids
have a chance to work on projects they really
care about?
Remember, an investment of interest will always pay off
with greater motivation and greater knowledge.
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