Google, What Did I Ever Do To You?

Early this week Fernie came out of the back room where he had been working on his online classes.  I am not sure he even walked down the hall -- I think it was more that his excitement teleported him instantaneously down the hall and into the living room.  He could hardly speak.

The gist was this.  Google launched a new Google image on their home page in honor of Les Paul, a fully playable  guitar.

That was it -- the moment I lost any hope of getting anyone to stay focused.

You see, we do home-school, the education option that we chose to help eliminate the distractions of the classroom.  Thank you, Google, for bringing an irresistible distraction right onto the computers we log onto every day to do school.

Did I mention it is a fully playable guitar?  You can strum it, over and over again, and they did...they all did.

Normally, these cool Google designs last a day in honor of a person or event.  I think I could have managed a day of redirecting 6 kids back to school work every few minutes with the sound knowledge that it would was just a fleeting distraction.  Unfortunately, it was such a fantastic success they decided to extend it, to honor him all week.
 
Don't get me wrong -- it is very cool.  The problem here, it's cooler than pretty much all their classes, certainly cooler than math.  So, I spent much of the week shutting down multi-player guitar jam sessions, listening to long Google guitar concerts, braking up virtual guitar arguments, and trying to get people to get back to work and stay on it.

Of course, every time they went to do research for class or switch websites there it was calling to their ADHD brains.  It reminded me of a bumper sticker I saw years ago that said...lead me not into temptation, for I shall find it myself.  It's amazing how much research was "required" this week.  Suddenly, everyone wanted to write a research paper.

It also reminded me of something my son said this morning.  He was talking about the difference between being medicated and when his medicine wears off or hasn't started working.   "It is amazing how when I am unmedicated I can only focus on things that I want to focus on.  When I am medicated it's easier to focus on things I don't want to focus on." he said, "When I am unmedicated if I don't want to do it, I can't focus on it at all!  If it is fun it's all I can think about.  If it's not fun I can't hardly make myself think about it."

The guitar was a lot of fun, probably thought up by someone with ADD/ADHD.

Shhh....apparently, you can still play it here!