The Pursuit of Tinkering

After reading the Obama Administration Plan for Innovation, Science & Technology, Bruce Nussbaum feels that Barack Obama has a grasp on technology, but fails to “get” innovation. So what does he think Obama should do?

…he actually needs to appoint a Chief Innovation Officer (CIO) because change is as much about sociology as technology, as much about creativity as science. And that translates into more money for art and design education in K-12 and college as well as more funding for science and math.

Personally, I think Obama gets innovation. The way he ran his campaign is evidence. But that doesn’t diminish the truth of what Nussbaum writes about the importance of creativity. Here is another snippet:

It’s important to give students “high order thinking skills including inference, logic, data analysis, interpretation, forming questions and commnication,” as the Plan says. It’s also important to give students the skills of empathy, imagining, intuiting, collaborating, iterating, learning from failing, visualizing, disrupting, engaging, even playing. These are the skills of creativity and we need creativity to build a new sustainable social model of economic growth.

Good stuff. Go read the full post, Does Obama Really “Get” Innovation? Not Really., on the BusinessWeek NussbaumOnDesign blog.

More great stuff on getting your kids outside at the Free Range Kids blog. How they describe themselves:

Do you ever let your kid ride a bike to the library? Walk alone to school? Take a bus, solo? Or are you thinking about it? If so, you are raising a Free Range Kid! At Free Range, we believe in safe kids. We believe in helmets, car seats and safety belts. We do NOT believe that every time school age children go outside, they need a security detail. Most of us grew up Free Range and lived to tell the tale. Our kids deserve no less. This site dedicated to sane parenting. Share your stories, tell your tips and maybe one day I will try to collect them in a book. Meantime, let’s try to help our kids embrace life! (And maybe even clear the table.)

Go check it out. And again, thanks to Tim O’Reilly’s Twitter feed for pointing me there.

Making a strong argument for spending more time outside, Scott Stevens of the Blunt Perspectives blog wrote:

Chill yourself out, but most importantly get out there for the kids. Let them throw rocks and hurt themselves. Let them go and explore and expend energy. Give their minds and bodies the chance to avoid the terrible effects of Urbanization and a conveniently lazy society.

We live in a city and we love it. And living in a city definitely does not correlate with laziness (I know more than a few lazy people in the small Wisconsin town where I grew up). With that said, I agree with the most of what Scott writes. I think my kids really would benefit form more time outside. I just wish it wasn’t so damn cold out (there I go being lazy again).

Read his full post here: Urban Jungles, Nature, and Society’s Peril. And thanks to Tim O’Reilly’s Twitter feed for pointing me to this post.

Just ran across this post from Judith E. Glaser. When her children were in elementary school she coordinated the publication of an annual book that contained stories and pictures from all 550 students in kindergarten through 5th grade. In regards to organizing the content she writes:

Something amazing seemed to drive the process at an almost invisible level. It was as though each year there was something in the air that each child was breathing - some aromatic that they could all sense. This unique essence showed up in the patterns and substance of the student’s expressive art work and writings. Each year it was different - each year a larger story emerged and - once we saw it - mystified those of us working on the project.

Looking back on the success of the project, Judith writes:

My feeling is that we all have bonding instincts. We have the need — a strong instinct — to connect with others and make music. When validated and fulfilled, our connections elevate us to higher levels of growth, wisdom, creativity and insight.

I LOVE Judith’s idea and her story. Read the full post: Children’s World - The Emergence of Self Expression

Yesterday I gave Crayola some hate for releasing simulated crayons. Today, I stumbled upon the Crayola Glow Station, which I love for two reasons:

1. It gives kids the ability to create art at a new time (night) and in a new place (the dark).
2. More important, the art is temporary, lasting only a few minutes before it fades.

For time and place, changing your environment is a great way to stimulate creativity. And why is temporary art a good thing? It’s too easy to get attached to our ideas, too easy to get stuck, failing to recognize that there is always another idea right around the corner. The Glow Station inherently solves that problem. It reminds me of a similar product that we bought for our kids a while back: Buddha Boards. They essentially do the same thing, except with water instead of light. I love their philosophy:

Buddha Board is based on the Zen concept of living in the moment. You simply paint on the surface with water and your creation will come to life in a bold design. Then, as the water slowly evaporates, your art will magically disappear leaving you with a clean slate and a clean mind - ready to create a whole new masterpiece.

Nice. That’s so, um, Zen.

And for you, Crayola, you have redeemed yourself. What other cool stuff do you have?

Parenting Experts Laura and Malcolm Gauld have a new post about the importance of qualities such as leadership, responsibility, initiative, creativity and flexibility to both parents and future employers of our children. They point out, however, that schools and parents typically fail when it comes to coordinating the education of our children around these critical skills. They go so far as to compare the parent/school relationship to that of divorced parents on bad terms:

Contact between schools and parents is often similar to divorced parents who share custody of children, but are not on particularly good terms. Each needs the other to take significant shared responsibility for raising the children, but it is an overwhelming matter to consider wading into communication about shared goals, common routines, and values.

Interesting stuff… And their “attitude over aptitude” approach to nurturing  these critical characteristics is equally as interesting.

However, their post caught my attention for another reason. They give several examples of how leadership, responsibility, initiative, and flexibility are cultivated in their classrooms. Creativity, besides prominent mention in the headline, was missing. Why?

Perhaps it is simply because a 400-word post cannot be comprehensive. Or, perhaps it is because creativity is a tricky beast. My guess is the latter. Unlike the Gaulds, I’m no expert. But it seems to me that structured educational systems impede creativity, rather than nurture it. Is that true? If yes, what can we do about it? If no, why might my perceptions be wrong?

Final thought on this: I could never argue against leadership, responsibility, initiative, and flexibility as critical skills for success. But there are days when I would argue that creativity is more important than all of them. Especially in the 21st Century.

Today, Crayola and Core Learning released Crayola Art Studio, a digital art program for children. From the press release:

Crayola Art Studio has a wide range of drawing and painting tools including many realistic art tools that simulate the real effects of traditional art tools such as Crayola crayons, pencils, markers, watercolors, tempera paint and more.

I don’t want to be a downer, but why not just use real crayons? Seriously. How could simulated crayons possibly be any better than the real thing?

To be fair, I understand that Crayola must feel some pressure to be part of the digital world. After all, in the very near future there won’t be any paper. Right? Right. Well I think it’s just fine for Crayola to join the digital age. In fact, as a father of two children and a shameless computer/Internet addict, I’ve actually spent an afternoon or two thinking about this.

At our house, my kids are still creating art the old-fashioned way. With actual crayons and paper. And they are creating lots of it. Being a geeky dad (that’s me to the right), as soon as they finish a drawing, I scan it in. Just takes one-click with a cheap $50 scanner I bought from Amazon.com. Then, after they go to bed, I spend a few minutes emailing their drawings to the grandparents, posting them to Flickr and my Facebook page, then tagging them in iPhoto so I can use them to torture the kids at their weddings.

There are a million things to do with kid art on the computer. And none of them have to do with creating the art. We should be using our computers to share the art!  Crayola, let’s talk. I’ll get you excited about it.

Toys aren’t inherently bad. There are just lots of bad toys. WalMart is bad. I know that pretty much for certain. With that in mind, I deliver to you the following:

The American Specialty Toy Retailing Association just published a press release regarding holiday toy shopping on a budget. And while I usually avoid retail associations for shopping advice, I thought it was worth passing along. Here is one of several better-than-average tips:

If you have less to spend this year, make the most of it by buying toys that are a good fit with the child’s abilities and interests. If the toy is a good match, you can expect the child to spend more hours playing with it and you will need fewer toys. While big box stores generally do not have experts available, the staff at small locally-owned toy stores understand child development and specialize in helping customers choose safe, developmentally appropriate toys.

Read the full release: This Season, Depend on Your Creativity as Much as Your Credit Card

Have you heard about No Child Left Inside? Why am I always the last to know…

I’ve been told more than once that I’m not a “joiner,” but this is a movement that I think I could get behind. If for no other reason than I just attended the Minneapolis showing of the Banff Mountain Film Festival. I have to say, those skiers, mountain bikers, kayakers, rock climbers, etc… sure seemed a hell of a lot happier than most of the designers and programmers I hang out with. Think they know something we don’t? Perhaps it’s time to log-out of Twitter, power down the MacBook, and take the kids out for a walk. What do you think?

For my to-do list: Learn more about this Richard Louv guy and his book that appears to have started all this.

For your to-do list: click on that Banff link above and get all inspired.

Our last few attempts to take the kids to the art museum ended in disaster. No Monets were harmed, but tantrums were thrown. It just isn’t a kid-friendly place.

A story by Barbara F. Backer might help. It has a few good ideas for engaging kids during a visit to the art museum that I plan to try next time. The best bet, for my kids, is her suggestion to kick-off a game of I-Spy each time you enter a new gallery. Perfect.

Minneapolis Institute of Arts here we come. Don’t say we didn’t warn you.