Will the next generation have a Steve Jobs?
The forecast doesn't look good. In an era of parental paranoia, lawsuit mania and testing frenzy, we are failing to inspire our children's curiosity, creativity, and imagination. We are denying them opportunities to tinker, discover, and explore -- in short, to play.
Jobs played not just as a child but throughout his adult life. He played to understand how things worked, then he played to invent new things, and then he kept playing to make those things singularly whimsical and "insanely great."
Despite the fact that Jobs is largely credited for the evolution of today's personal computer, he never advocated that kids spend the better part of their waking hours in front of one. In fact, he almost said the opposite:
"The elements of discovery are all around you. You don't need a computer. Here -- why does that fall? You know why? Nobody in the entire world knows why that falls. We can describe it pretty accurately but no one knows why. I don't need a computer to get a kid interested in that, to spend a week playing with gravity and trying to understand that and come up with reasons why."
And instead of merely watching his TV set as a child, Jobs was busy imagining how to build one of his own, drawing from the skills he acquired through his favorite toys:
"These Heathkits would come with these detailed manuals about how to put this thing together and all the parts would be laid out in a certain way and color coded. You'd actually build this thing yourself... These things were not mysteries anymore. I mean, you looked at a television set, you would think that 'I haven't built one of those but I could... ' It gave a tremendous level of self-confidence, that through exploration and learning one could understand seemingly very complex things in one's environment. My childhood was very fortunate in that way."
Despite his insatiable appetite for learning, Jobs often struggled within the confines of a classroom. He would likely perform very poorly on the multiple-choice tests that have become the golden standard for measuring our children's aptitude:
"School was pretty hard for me at the beginning. My mother taught me how to read before I got to school and so when I got there I really just wanted to do two things. I wanted to read books because I loved reading books and I wanted to go outside and chase butterflies. You know, do the things that five year olds like to do. I encountered authority of a different kind than I had ever encountered before, and I did not like it. And they really almost got me. They came close to really beating any curiosity out of me."
We are raising today's children in sterile, risk-averse and highly structured environments. In so doing, we are failing to cultivate artists, pioneers and entrepreneurs, and instead cultivating a generation of children who can follow the rules in organized sports games, sit for hours in front of screens and mark bubbles on standardized tests.
We say we're "protecting" our children. We say we're setting them up to "succeed." Really, we're doing neither, and we're letting an entire generation down. The most fitting way to honor Jobs' legacy? Let our kids outside to play.
Follow Darell Hammond on Twitter: www.twitter.com/kaboom
Apple - Remembering Steve Jobs
Remembering Steve Jobs - Forbes
TED Blog | Remembering Steve Jobs
You put him on a pedestal like he invented sliced bread, or the light bulb. What we need are people with a kinder heart, peace loving, will not make a buck out of every opportunity, and will not go "thermo-nuclear" on every other product that has the potential to overtake him.
More kids like Steve Jobs. Tsss. I say we have too many like him, and not enough kinder hearts.
Credentialism and professionalism are traps. Our decline will continue until these false idols fall.
Now, university experience is an important one, for many reasons. And I would strongly argue one should go to university for many reasons. However, going to university in order to "land a good job" is the wrong reason for doing it. If that's why you go there, and chances are if that's the reason you'll pick an expensive one as well, you'll just spend ton of money and you are not going to get much out of it.
A good university is not the place that allows you to "only" learn (it's an very important aspect, still). It's a place that will allow you to experiment and do things as part of the learning. If you miss this opportunity to experiment and do things at university, you are missing the best part of learning experience it offers. And guess what, "I did X at university" sounds way better on your fresh-out-of university resume than "I went to big-flashy-name-here university".
For my first son we decided to hold back on Pre-K 3 because we felt that there was no rush for him to be institutionalized. We felt a need for more play. Right now he is in Pre-K 4 and the program he is in is just a few hours a day and it has an emphasis on play again.
We will be doing the same thing with our second child.
So many people have such high expectations for their kids to succeed even at the littlest task (who can talk first, walk first, count first, read first, etc). I just feel that what's the rush and why all the pressure? Let the kids play and discover who they are. Of course as a parent we are there to guide them along the way.
I'm doing fine though so good luck with that.
We are a perfect example of this article. My friends and I invented a new game called Hantis in high school by PLAYING with a tennis ball. We are now entrepreneurs in our mid-20's, spreading our developed game (now a sport) into middle schools, high school, and colleges. There is nothing wrong with organized sports that keep kids active, they're just too competitive. Rotational Hantis is pretty revolutionary because teammates switch every play and the game focuses more on performing creative tricks than scoring points. As with anything new, adults don't understand, but kids love it. It's only popular where people know about it so far, but we're starting our campaign in Lexington, KY (Men's Health Magazine's #1 Most Sedentary City in America) to change that.