The Noble Scholar

During class this week we spent a lot of time talking about Hobbes and Rousseau. While discussing the things that Rousseau thought about in terms of his philosophy I started to really think about his idea of "Emile" or what would be the best way to raise a child.

this concept was really striking to me because it is something that I had considered from time to time, but never really sat down and though about, because as it is, it isn't particularly urgent in my life yet. When really thinking about it though, I wonder what sort of things would be said when asked what you think the perfect way to raise a child is.

So this is my general outlook at a good parenting guide, and my question to you is, what would yours consist of?

From birth until schooling the child should spend almost every waking moment with at least one of the parents learning about life within the confines of natural skills (i.e. music, language, communication in arts, science, coordination, and understanding).

The child should be brought out into the real world in all kinds of conditions (like sun, snow and rain) so that they can begin to learn what life is like beyond the confines of their home and begin to explore the worlld around them.

I think that adventuring would be important to their life, but its not necessary that they do it alone, go out on hikes and explore rivers or other surrounding natural interesting things, let them become experienced in the immidiate world with you.

Avoid current stereotypical cartoons and "toys r' us": instead let them watch some charlie brown... break out the old lego's and brio train sets, these are things that would be more educational to them than any elmo toy, trust me.

Play to their interests, if you start teaching them about everything and they pertain to certain skills, let them thrive on that, but make sure not to give up on the other important things for them to learn about.

Julia's Happiness Machine

This is a response to your thought provoking question about the happiness machine..

I think that it would be hard for me to decide on every single thing that would be different in my happiness machine especially with respect to things that would be physically possible / probable. Assuming that anything could be different in this happiness machine, I would add some fun to life in terms of super natural ability: i.e. the ability to control given surroundings with telepathy, to be able to shoot flames out of my fingertips or the ability to fly :)

however, I think that if given the option to walk into my own happiness machine... Where I am right now I don't think that I would go inside, because my life is pretty happy the way it is, and stepping inside would take away the things that I have worked for to get to where I am now. I would leave it to someone else who needed it.