bughouse

Originally uploaded by cpeppler

On a recent camping trip, not too far from our home, my wife found a tiny frog in the showers. (No, I won’t name the campsite…) My older son, Zachary, had a bughouse ready for just such a find.

The boys stared at that thing for a long time, watching it climb the mesh and generally freak out at its unexpected capture. But they were enthralled by it.

It impressed me that this was enough to entertain them. And the question that burned into me as I become more surrounded by technology and the questions it engenders is this: how do I keep this alive? How do I keep them from saying, like the fourth-grader in Richard Louv’s _The Last Child in the Woods_, “I like to be inside because that’s where all the outlets are.”?

Of course I want them to be comfortable with all the technologies available to them in their lifetime, and I want them to be skilled enough to leverage those tools to maximize their own learning.

But I also want them to comfortable sitting around a campsite, appreciating the delicacy of life wrapped up in a tiny amphibian.