A recent article in Newsweek magazine talked of how the US is falling behind in creativity. Our education system, it wrote, has so focused on standardized testing that creative thought is taking a back seat to rote memorization. And, as schools are facing ever more drastic budget cuts, traditionally creative programs such as Art, Music, even Digital Design are being eliminated to save money. Additionally, more stimulating and challenging methods of teaching more “academic” subjects such as science, math, and english are being discouraged in favor of standardized lesson plans designed to help schools get higher scores in their annual assessment tests.
Yet, school is not the only place creativity can be encouraged. Over the coming articles, I’ll be examining and revealing exciting ways this most important type of learning can be inspired OUTSIDE of school using the very tools and activities that kids are already big fans of. From the next generation of iPhone/iPod/iPad apps that allow children to create drawings, animation, even movies to video games that provide the tools for them to build their own games. From websites that provide detailed instructors on how kids can become their own version of Thomas Edison with easily available things around the house to free programs that empower them to design and even invent.
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The 4th of July was always a very big celebration in my home town. It was the 1960′s and we were just beginning to hear the call for “Safe & Sane” fireworks. You could still buy pretty much anything short of tactical nuclear weapons if knew where to go.
One of the most distinct memories of have of those hot summer days when the air smelled of smoke and the sounds of pops, whizzing, and an occasional KABOOM range out across the town was my father’s annual war with our neighbor Bruce. There was a open lot separating our houses and every year my father and Bruce would attempt to fire rockets back and forth at each other in and effort to span this gap. At first, we used bottle rockets but would harmlessly land and explode in the middle somewhere. But, as dad and his nemesis would explore an ever larger array of “weapons dealers” the size of the rockets began to grow. And so their range.
Finally, fateful day arrived. I was down in my dirt pile (it had been a sand pile but I had mixed the sand with dirt because any 10 year old boy will tell you, sand is boring, DIRT IS COOL! I was busy placing a pair of black cats under an enemy car. “Come on, let’s show Bruce whose the boss!” my dad exclaimed as he walked by. I jumped up and followed along, noticing his was carrying a rather large cardboard box under his arm. We strolled down the incline in our lawn to a point near an old tree. Across the vast (at least to a 10 year old) expanse of the open lot I could see Bruce doing what he loved to do on hot summer days, sleep in his hammock in the front yard. Dad placed the box on the grown and with a flourish pulled out his pocket knife and deftly opened it. He reached in and carefully removed one of the largest rockets I’d ever seen. “This’ll get him, for sure!” dad gleefully said. We set up the launcher, and dad carefully gauged the wind and distance before targetting this monster. “OK, when I light this run up and get behind that tree. I’m not sure what it’s going to do!” He reached down, and with this tip of his Falcon cigar carefully lit the fuse. It immediately sparked to life and we dashed up and hide behind the tree. WHOOOOSH! the rocket suddenly roared off the pad. We followed it go up…up…up…then arc over and start falling…falling…then KABLAM!!!!! It couldn’t have done better if it had been GPS guided as it exploded about 10 feet above Bruce’s head. He suddenly flipped up and out of the hammock and landed on his lawn. He sat there dazed for a few moments then suddenly jumped up and looked our way. By this time Dad was out in the open. “Phhhhhttttttt” dad razed him. Bruce shook his fist and dashed into his house. So began yet another year of the great Duderstadt/Finalyson war. It was kind of like the Hatfields versus the McCoys accept we used rockets, and every other day of the year my dad and Bruce were good friends.
Sadly, the rockets got every larger until they no longer just hit our lots but our neighbors and complaints brought an end to this annual battle.
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