Enjoy and Bless

For Black History Month, we watched Hidden Figures—a fantastic movie about three African American women working for NASA during the space race. One of the women, Dorothy Vaughan, led a group of Black women mathematicians called “computers.” (Before watching this movie, I had never thought about computer being a common profession before electronic computers were invented!) The film highlights the moment when electronic computers began to replace human calculators and shows how Vaughan brilliantly anticipated the shift. She taught herself Fortran programming and prepared her team to transition from human computing to computer programming. The movie is powerful, inspiring, and beautifully done—I highly recommend it.

I had seen this film before, but this time I was struck by the parallel between the challenges these women faced and the rapid changes in technology we are facing today. With the growing relationship between the internet and Artificial Intelligence, in the same way computing is no longer a task primarily done by people, humans are becoming less essential as information processors. Computers can store vastly more information than all our brains combined, and AI can sift through and synthesize it almost instantly. In a world where machines handle not just data, but knowledge, research, and analysis, what unique contributions do humans have to offer?

Some historians believe we are moving out of the Information Age and into the Imagination Age—a time when creativity and innovation will be our most valuable assets.

However, now more than ever, children’s creativity is being crowded out by schedules that are largely decided for them: early morning rides to school, full days of classes, shrinking recess time, structured after-school activities, homework, and organized sports fill almost every hour. With new technology come new problems—problems that will require strong creative minds to guide progress in ways that benefit society and help humanity flourish.

If our children are to thrive in this future, we would do well to let them do what they do best: play, explore, create, imagine, and think outside the box. Unschooling offers opportunity for children to give themselves fully to the creative process. It gives children the time and autonomy to explore their own ideas, connect concepts in unique ways, and notice what others may miss.

I feel so encouraged and inspired when I think about this. The freedom unschooling provides may be paving the way for children to make surprising, meaningful—even world-changing—contributions. When we let children lead their own learning, we are not just giving them freedom to follow their own path—we may be shaping the next generation of innovators who will define the Imagination Age.