Volleyball, Open kitchens, Goo and Learning Environments

I couldn’t name 1 university when I was 15 but my friends wore "colors" of their favorite college teams. I didn’t know why an education was important but it allowed me to play volleyball so I went to school. I didn’t realize what it would take to get out of my neighborhood till I saw the environment that would take me out. It was a gym. A gym filled with talented volleyball players and coaches playing on weekends and practicing outside of their High School walls. I heard from a friend that college scouts would be at their tournament and I knew I had to get into that environment if I wanted to wear college “colors.”

Where you learn matters and the environment you learn in can be life- changing. Everything about your learning environment matters from the distractions to the inspiring quotes you may choose to have on your wall, to the resources in your craft closet, it all matters.

Growing up I couldn’t experiment with craft supplies or kitchen seasonings and if by chance I was given the chance to be creative I had to do it in a specific way with specific guidelines. One may argue that isn’t a learning environment set up for actual creativity to emerge and I would have to agree. I knew that when I had children they would have a craft closet and the kitchen would always be open, and it is.

Since my children could hold a spoon they have been in the kitchen experimenting and when I say experimenting I mean it. They have baked flat, burnt, green "cookies." Why have an Easy Bake Oven when you have a real oven? Through this type of learning environment they have learned how to create amazing dishes and not because we gave them a recipe but because we gave them an environment to create, to mess up, to learn from, and to experiment.

Tonight, when I sat down to type I noticed something very odd about my keyboard, it was beautiful, almost shinny. This is not possible with 4 dogs running in and around my office. There was virtually no dust between the keys. Had my husband bought me a new keyboard? No, the “e, s and l” were still missing. So what happened? My son, who is not yet a teenager, came in and said, "what do

you think about your keyboard?" I looked at him and said please tell me you didn’t use soap and water. He laughed and said, "goo, I saw all the dust and remembered a life hack video one time how goo could clean keyboards so I went and looked up the video found glue, contact solution, baking soda ect and tried it and look, mom, it worked." Learning environment matter.

(click on any image or underlined text to learn more about learning environments)