Yesterday, after touring a high school with our 8th grade son, we had lunch and talked about what kind of high school would be best for him. I asked him a few questions to attempt to get to the heart of what he's passionate about. He brought up math, science, robotics, problem solving, and music. We talked more about the problem solving and robotics and brainstormed about what jobs there might be that engaged that interest and what kind of high school and college programs that might support that. He expressed a strong interest in learning how things work and building new things to solve problems. I started wishing that we lived closer to my dad. He is an inventor and master problem solver with all things mechanical and chemical. Thinking I could help narrow down the type of inventive problem solving Chase might be interested in, I asked him another question. "If you were to be able to solve any problem/issue in the world, what would it be?" He answered, "well racism is going away and sexism is going away, but there are still a lot of people that don't get it. I want every single human being to be equal."
I'm not sure how to take that into math, science, or robotics but I sure would like someone to invent something that could solve that problem.
Grace in, peace out
P.S. Maybe it's time to research social justice leaders, Nelson Mandela, MLK, jr., Marshall Rosenberg, etc. Or I could suggest he research R. Buckminster Fuller like my dad did when I was in college. His dymaxion house and geodesic dome designs strongly influenced my path towards architecture. A few years ago, I realized that 'Bucky's' passion for social justice is even more inspiring to me than his feats of engineering. When I was in college, I missed the point about what inspired these new types of structure. I am still growing into my understanding of his work. I wonder what part, if any, would speak to Chase.