Kasey’s Advice: “Keep Up the Fun”

By Kevin Nelson
The latest in my quest to do every challenge in The Dangerous Book for Boys with my sons in a year—

Karen Kath, a retired teacher who goes by the name of Kasey, weighed in recently on the surprisingly lively debate about blotting paper versus construction paper in the building of our homemade battery project. She votes for blotting paper.

“Let’s see, first, blotting paper is in most schools that have been around for awhile,” she writes. “The new teachers probably don’t have any idea what it is, but we used to each have a blotter with blotting paper that was changed at least once a month. And it wasn’t the “Dark Ages”!! Only about forty years ago. Construction paper won’t have the weight of blotting paper.”

Kasey also has some ideas on how to get more parents, fathers especially, involved in this quest: “My suggestions for getting people involved would be to give ideas that come to you, from things in the book.  If the people reading do not have The Dangerous Book for Boys, you might get them interested, first, with your ideas. Also, suggest that they check the book out from the library. Right now, families are trying to do things without having to spend a lot of money. You might try telling the boys’ teachers what you are doing. When we, teachers, hear a good idea we tend to pass it on to others we think might be interested. Many classes and schools have a newsletter that your website could be put into. I know my principal liked to give parents ideas of things to do with their kids. I’ve been passing along your info, as I think it is a wonderful plan. I have challenged a couple of my relatives to do the same thing, as I had given them the book. I’ll keep thinking, but I hope this helps you somewhat. Keep up the fun.”

Will do, Kasey, and thanks for the suggestions. This week is “No TV Week” at the boys’ elementary school. They and their schoolmates are being urged to turn off the television, computer and electronic games and instead play board games, go on walks, read stories and do other activities that do not involve staring at a screen. (I just read how the average American looks at a screen eight hours a day.)  Children keep a record of their activities and the class with the lowest amount of television watching for the week earns a pizza party. Some of the activities from The Dangerous Book for Boys (or some similar title) would have been perfect for this.