Midwest Mimi

  • The Skateboard Is the Way In

    Two baskets of library books showed me what changes when learning begins with a child’s real interests. For Channing, the skateboard became the way in.

  • Some Lessons Are Too Expensive to Learn the Hard Way

    Some lessons are worth learning by trial and error. Others carry consequences too serious to discover after the fact. From marriage and parenting to the race to build more powerful AI, I keep coming back to the same question: when do we know enough to put the guardrails up?

  • 11 Ways to Disguise School as Real Life

    Kids do not all need the same path into learning. From cooking and gardening to movies, board games, special interests, and even boredom, real life is full of ways to help children learn without making everything feel like school.

  • The Bandwidth of Peace

    A rainy spring morning, a numb hand, an unfinished book-tree drawing, and a list of “analog hobbies” got me thinking about disability, creativity, and accommodations. There is no prize for making the process harder. The prize is the peace we feel while making something.