{"id":1055,"date":"2010-05-18T07:16:19","date_gmt":"2010-05-18T11:16:19","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.publishersweekly.com\/blogs\/shelftalker\/?p=1055"},"modified":"2010-05-18T07:16:19","modified_gmt":"2010-05-18T11:16:19","slug":"what-really-makes-learning-fun","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.publishersweekly.com\/blogs\/shelftalker\/?p=1055","title":{"rendered":"What *Really* Makes Learning Fun"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"It seems as though every ad or promotion for an educational tool promises to “make learning fun!” This reflects our culture’s lazy habit of talking about learning as if it’s inevitably tedious, something kids will resist as vigorously as canned asparagus. Granted, any subject can be made dull by a disaffected teacher, and any lessons centered around “teaching to the test” is not going to light young minds on fire and change lives. But children are learning machines; they love discovery. They enjoy new ideas, and knowing things, and engaging with the world around them. They even love the hard work and discipline involved in learning, as long as it makes them feel purposeful and alive. We all do.
\n\"\"<\/a>A segment on CBS’s 60 Minutes<\/em> reminded me of this truth; it featured Gustavo Dudamel, the 29-year-old Venezuelan phenom conductor now heading the Los Angeles Philharmonic. Watching his passion for music was mesmerizing, and was made even more powerful by the way he shares it with thousands of children who might otherwise never have a chance to be involved in anything like the not-for-profit music program he’s helped found in Venezuela and L.A. Watching this wild-haired, unpretentious, semi-goofy wunderkind radiate his love of music, and communicate it to roomfuls of children from kindergarten through high school, made me a little teary. I’m always moved by people doing what they were born to do, and doing it with joy.
\nIf you have a chance to watch the full segment<\/a> about Dudamel, I guarantee you’ll be inspired, too. (It’s just under 14 minutes.) If you’d like to read about him and see more video clips, here’s a good place to start.<\/a>
\nWatching Dudamel’s story made me think about those lazy assumptions we can sometimes make about kids and what they won’t want to do or learn. It left me re-inspired to make sure I not only share my own passion for books with the children at the store, but to share with kids all kinds of books that communicate an author’s or artist’s passion\u2014for language, for story, for history and science and sport and fantasy and family and art and music and friendship\u2014that might resonate with a child’s heart and mind. It’s the least we can do.
\n\"\"<\/a>
\nWho inspires you, and broadens your thinking about the kinds of books you share with young readers?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

It seems as though every ad or promotion for an educational tool promises to “make learning fun!” This reflects our culture’s lazy habit of talking about learning as if it’s inevitably tedious, something kids will resist as vigorously as canned asparagus. Granted, any subject can be made dull by a disaffected teacher, and any lessons […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1055","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.publishersweekly.com\/blogs\/shelftalker\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1055","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.publishersweekly.com\/blogs\/shelftalker\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.publishersweekly.com\/blogs\/shelftalker\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.publishersweekly.com\/blogs\/shelftalker\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.publishersweekly.com\/blogs\/shelftalker\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1055"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.publishersweekly.com\/blogs\/shelftalker\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1055\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.publishersweekly.com\/blogs\/shelftalker\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1055"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.publishersweekly.com\/blogs\/shelftalker\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1055"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.publishersweekly.com\/blogs\/shelftalker\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1055"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}