I haven't written a blog post in more than a year! It hasn't been for lack of taking action, though — quite the opposite!
So, what have you guys done in this last year?
Well!
We're launched Young Philosophers, a two-hour, once-a-week program that gets young kids deep into biochemistry, evolutionary biology, ancient history, world religions, philosophical argument... and cooking. (Foods cooked so far: crêpes, quiche, scones,
I've given a TEDx talk (which should be online soon), titled "Why Doesn't Test Prep Work?". It's geared for a high school audience, but it captures some of our plans to help young kids become mathematicians.
We're about to launch Leonardo, our 2-day-a-week homeschooling supplement, which we're using to pioneer the curriculum we'll use in our school. (Our plan is to evolve the program into a full school.) We're proud to partner with Camp Roots to provide an excellent (and affordable) 3rd day (Fridays) for outdoor school.
I've given a 15-minute talk on some of the powerful ideas of Imaginative Education. It's geared for Toastmasters (a public speaking organization), but it's comprehensible for a larger audience.
...and some other stuff.
What's up next?!
I'll be giving another talk in May, about deliberate practice (and how it offers a new way forward in skill-building). It'll be a sequel, of sorts, to the TEDx talk that I gave, but'll explore deliberate practice in more detail.
We'll also be leading two workshops at the Washington Homeschool Organization (WHO)'s annual convention, in June —
"How can I use history to talk about the questions that really matter?"
"Everything is interesting, but how do I help my kids see it?"
The huge thing, though, is launching Leonardo. We're terribly, terribly excited about it — it's a seed crystal of what we want to offer in a school.
Will you be writing more on this blog?
I haven't made up my mind, yet — I'm trying to balance the easy fun of blog-writing with the hard fun of building.
If you have any notions of how I might productively use the blog to help build our offerings, I'd actually love to hear that! Shoot me an email at brandon.hendrickson@gmail.com.
And thanks for reading!