What a stupid name.
What would happen if a bunch of kids got together after school and learned stuff for fun?
Wait, Learning for Fun? Why not?
Do you want to learn how to build robots? Do you want to fire rockets? Do you want to dissect frogs? Do you want to speak Chinese?
What if they wanted to play chess? Well, there’s a chess club, but what if they had to design a war game where it was locational and strategic in nature? Chess, yes, Risk, yes, Stratego, yes.
The idea is to get people to act on their curiosity and not depend on outside sources for entertainment. What happens now when we teach kids? We transfer our knowledge to them. We think they learn by absorption. They learn by exploration.
Look at video games. On each new level, they have a new challenge to beat and they have to explore different possibilities, tactics and strategies, find new areas of the map, or combine new materials to make something useful. They’re addicted.
So what if, in learning about their favorite cars, they have to read articles that are currently above their reading level? What if, in working with their rockets, they want to figure out where to put the recovery team to collect it and the math involves differential equations? What if, in designing a robot, they have to explore the physics and engineering that they wouldn’t get until college level? Watch “October Sky”, “School of Rock”, and “Home Alone.”
We must assume that kids are resourceful, creative, and whole, and when faced with a problem can and will find a way to solve it.