Misinformation

So, I'm talking to a mom and mention that my kids go to Sudbury. She says "Oh god, its amazing how much misinformation is spread about that school!" I said "Huh?" kind of alarmed/excited to find out what she's talking about and ready to debunk if need be. She says "Well, my friends were looking at it but they got the idea that the kids can just play video games all day if they want to." I said,only cringing a little bit, "They can." and then added hastily "but that's not all they do there."

We went on to have a nice chat and I enlightened her to the fact that my kids didn't just spend all day playing video games, they also build forts, play with bionicles, go sledding and eat ice cream at 10 o clock in the morning! Its really hard to explain to someone why I'm ok with this even though I too often feel twinges of uncertainty...the old "Shouldn't they be learning?" bug.

The video game issue is a big one for me but the way she presented it is actually two separate problems. The first is Can you trust children to be totally in charge of their day and their learning process? the second is Is it harmful to spending whole days doing nothing but playing video games.

The way I see it is that the answer to both questions is a yes and how do I reconcile them. You have to look at the big picture. I have a problem with excessive reliance on video in general. I think its bad for their eyes, and limits their imagination and creativity. I also think that you think differently and process information differently if you are playing one of those mpp games online vs. old fashioned dungeons and dragons with a 12 sided die. However, I don't think that the overall harm of excessive video game playing outweighs the good of the other aspects of sudbury. If they go to a traditional school its true that they won't be playing ultraviolent video games but they also won't be getting the practice in decision making or moral guidance that they get at sudbury so I'm willing to take the good with the bad.