Homework Into Video Games, By Mackenzie

For science right now, we're studying atoms, molecules, and compounds and their properties. One of the things that the kids are supposed to do for this new Charter School program is to show "mastery" of the subject in many different ways: by writing papers, making models, drawing timelines, making illustrations, doing projects, etc. So when I asked Mackenzie how he wanted to illustrate the properties of matter, he suggested that he write a simple video game that allowed the user to see way the molecules move in the different states of water.

If you want to see it in action, you can download his game from Google Docs. It doesn't have any viruses, I promise. He programmed it in GameMaker 8, which he highly recommends. He says it allows you to do object-oriented programming, it's easy to learn, and you can make stand-alone executables like the simple one that he made for this project. You can even sell them (unlike stuff you make in programs like Scratch).

Leave it to this kid to find a way to turn something into a programming project. I have to say, it's pretty cool though. He wants to say a special thank-you to his Aunty Meese and Uncle Nick who gave him GameMaker for his birthday last year. Obviously, it's been put to good use!

A Virtual Solution to A Real World Problem

This is a mind-bender of epic proportions, but I think it also gives an insight into my kids' mind and how he thinks, which is very cool.

So Mackenzie just got this Xbox game from a friend, it's obviously in used condition but it seemed to play fine. Then at one point in the game, it got stuck and wouldn't let the character go any farther. As it turns out, there was a scratch on the disk. Mackenzie buffed it a little and tried again, but it still got hung up at the same point.

He reasoned that he might be able to get around this problem because, as he explained to me, games used to load an entire level at one time, which made it take a very long time each time you went to a new level. However now they buffer and load segments of the level while you're actually playing it, loading just the areas that your character is going to travel into. So he figured that there was a scratch in this area of the disk, it would probably only affect that particular area of the map in the level. So he had his character WALK AROUND THE SCRATCH. Yep, he walked way off course, down into some valley and took the long way around, and he walked around the scratch on the disk because he walked into a different map segment that wasn't scratched. Isn't that cool? It just blows my mind how entwined virtual and real can be, and provides a glimpse into the future that's kind of freaky.

It also gives me a lot of insight into the cool deductive way that my kid thinks. No wonder his favorite novels are the Sherlock Holmes series!

There have been many such examples lately that demonstrate to me how alike we are in some ways. It's no surprise that when I worked at Microsoft, Testing was my field. To be a Tester, you need to be able to understand the code and how it works, and then think of all of the different ways that you could stress that code. I'm sure he gets a fair amount of this ability from his dad the jet mechanic as well. Wayne has to do this kind of problem-solving frequently in his job. Mackenzie totally thinks like this on a daily basis. When he finds a problem, whether its hardware or software related, he starts thinking of all of the different things that could be causing it, and then starts methodically narrowing them down.He's the kind of person I would've loved to have on my team at Microsoft! What a cool kid.

Unschooling and Older Kids

This topic came up on a parenting board that I frequent - what does unschooling look like when your kids get older. I thought some folks who read this blog might also be interested in this topic. I used to really enjoy reading about people who had unschooling older kids in the 12 - 18 year old age range, and one day I turned around and I had one too!

So what does a day look like for an unschooling 12 year old?? There's the daily stuff - taking care of pets (guinea pigs, chickens, cats) and helping out around the house, kitchen, or garden. Today he had some robotics programming to do for our FLL Robotics Team, then we took a bike ride down to a local park where there was a big apple tree I wanted to gather apples from. While I was taking Asa to classes, he probably played some Spore, the big evolutionary computer game that about every tween and teen boy we know loves. It's such an interesting game concept that National Geographic did a documentary on it. A clip is here.
Some younger boys from the neighborhood came over in the afternoon, and he showed them (safely!) how to set leaves on fire with a magnifying glass. There's this little troupe of boys around here who love to come over. He plays Yu Gi Oh with them or pirates or swords or imaginary games, it's very cute to watch him interacting with these littler guys and having a good time with them. I told him I'd pay for him to go take the Red Cross babysitting course, he'd be a great babysitter and I said he should advertise that he "speaks Bionicle and Lego".

He and I walked down to the store together to get some stuff for dinner, and then while I was cooking he read the NY Times online to me. He's especially very interested in all the political stuff right now. In the afternoon, he had watched me fill out my ballot (Oregonians all vote by mail-in ballot)and discussed the ballot issues and candidates with me. He had read through the voter's pamphlet and was pointing out some of the candidates he liked. In the evening, he hung out with Wayne as he filled in his ballot as well. They lay by the fireplace and talked about the issues. Wayne and I had marked up our voter's pamphlets with our personal answers on ballot measures and candidates, so we discussed the ones we differed on and then he went on to finish up his voting. I love that Mackenzie feels like such a big part of the political process, from going to rallies to voting, he's been actively watching and reading about everything that's transpired in this amazing election year.

So that's one day in the life of a 12-year-old unschooler. Every day is different of course. We do karate together on some days, have robotics team meetings and practice on others. So much of his days now are up to him, what he wants to be interested and involved in. It's a bit weird for me to start taking these steps back as he moves more and more in his own directions without really asking for much input from me. It's also cool to watch as he matures and grows into a person I really like hanging out with and even talking politics with (I can't say that about everyone!)