As a parent, grandfather and great grandfather, I have seen our kids change away from being explorers. Why? That is what this blog is about.
Did you read Mark Twain's book "Tom Sawyer"? I did and now looking back, I think it had a significant impact on me and the person I have become. It started out with his Aunt Polly calling for Tom. You must remember that! The parts that impressed me was how Tom and his friend Huck Finn explored the caves along the Mississippi. We did not have any caves around where I grew up so I was very impressed with all the mystery about caves. I explored the creeks and rivers in my area and actually built my own raft like Tom and Huck. The book "Tom Sawyer" was very natural to me, but I am sure that it is "not" natural to kids today. Why is that and what does it mean?
If you look at exploring in the big picture, it is driven my our intellect. Our advance brain makes us curious about the world around us. Exploring is basically how we learn. We want to know what is on the other side of the river or over that hill. It has always been that way. I know as a kid that I spent a "lot" of time exploring the world that I live in. Humans have always been curious and have wondered about the Sun and Moon and we still do today. As we learn about new things, we only discover that there is still more to learn. It never ends, but for many of our kids today, many think that they know "enough" and thus feel that there is no problem stopping exploring and being curious. Are you starting to see that things have changed?
Here is where things changed. For thousands of years, us humans lived with clear limits. We thought going to the Moon was impossible, but now we have gone there. We lived within those limits, but many of us felt that we had been missing out on many things. As we have gotten more affluent, now we can try to do some of those things. If our parents could not afford for us to do some of those things, now that we were richer, we could allow our kids to do those things that we were denied. That is why many parents today are helping their kids participate in all kinds of activities that they could not. On the surface, this looks "good", but their is a darker side.
What we all forget is that when we "add" something new to participate in, we also have to eliminate something that we used to do. Look at our kids playing organized soccer or other organized activities. The word is "organized". Sounds good, but it is really bad because is cancels out the exploring that we all used to do and learned from. Think about the impact of "organized" activities, where is the exploring in that kind of activity? Much of my early exploring was done alone. That is just the opposite of what happens in these organized activities. If you think about it, wasn't most of your learning done alone? If you look at most of the major discoveries thru historically, they were done by individuals working alone. Did most of the major artists paint their pictures as part of an organized team? No! The idea was in the mind of the artist and it was up to him or her to paint it onto the canvas. Do your kids paint in their bed rooms alone? Do they work in their garden alone? Kids today hardly do anything alone. Their parents want them to participate in some kind of organized activity at the expense of many of the things we use to do alone like exploring.
Why don't you make a list of the exploring activities that you used to do alone that your kids do not do today? Do you think that it is better now for your kids to punch keys on their PC with their thumbs or exploring like you used to do?
Did you read Mark Twain's book "Tom Sawyer"? I did and now looking back, I think it had a significant impact on me and the person I have become. It started out with his Aunt Polly calling for Tom. You must remember that! The parts that impressed me was how Tom and his friend Huck Finn explored the caves along the Mississippi. We did not have any caves around where I grew up so I was very impressed with all the mystery about caves. I explored the creeks and rivers in my area and actually built my own raft like Tom and Huck. The book "Tom Sawyer" was very natural to me, but I am sure that it is "not" natural to kids today. Why is that and what does it mean?
If you look at exploring in the big picture, it is driven my our intellect. Our advance brain makes us curious about the world around us. Exploring is basically how we learn. We want to know what is on the other side of the river or over that hill. It has always been that way. I know as a kid that I spent a "lot" of time exploring the world that I live in. Humans have always been curious and have wondered about the Sun and Moon and we still do today. As we learn about new things, we only discover that there is still more to learn. It never ends, but for many of our kids today, many think that they know "enough" and thus feel that there is no problem stopping exploring and being curious. Are you starting to see that things have changed?
Here is where things changed. For thousands of years, us humans lived with clear limits. We thought going to the Moon was impossible, but now we have gone there. We lived within those limits, but many of us felt that we had been missing out on many things. As we have gotten more affluent, now we can try to do some of those things. If our parents could not afford for us to do some of those things, now that we were richer, we could allow our kids to do those things that we were denied. That is why many parents today are helping their kids participate in all kinds of activities that they could not. On the surface, this looks "good", but their is a darker side.
What we all forget is that when we "add" something new to participate in, we also have to eliminate something that we used to do. Look at our kids playing organized soccer or other organized activities. The word is "organized". Sounds good, but it is really bad because is cancels out the exploring that we all used to do and learned from. Think about the impact of "organized" activities, where is the exploring in that kind of activity? Much of my early exploring was done alone. That is just the opposite of what happens in these organized activities. If you think about it, wasn't most of your learning done alone? If you look at most of the major discoveries thru historically, they were done by individuals working alone. Did most of the major artists paint their pictures as part of an organized team? No! The idea was in the mind of the artist and it was up to him or her to paint it onto the canvas. Do your kids paint in their bed rooms alone? Do they work in their garden alone? Kids today hardly do anything alone. Their parents want them to participate in some kind of organized activity at the expense of many of the things we use to do alone like exploring.
Why don't you make a list of the exploring activities that you used to do alone that your kids do not do today? Do you think that it is better now for your kids to punch keys on their PC with their thumbs or exploring like you used to do?
