Wednesday, January 14, 2009
Thursday, August 21, 2008
Educational Toys Are Good… But Don't My Children Need Some Toys Just For Fun?
Okay, so this opinion might not be the most popular. But please, don't crucify me. I'm a good dad. I got my kids all the toys my wife found to help the kids’ "development." You know, educational toys. The kind you have to drive twenty miles out of your way to tiny store in a strip mall in West Nowhere to find, or order from some obscure catalog or website based in Canada.
And believe me, I'm glad my kids have things like mini computers that teach spelling and math, crystal-growing science project kits, memory games, puzzle cubes and problem-solving computer CD-ROMs. But I sometimes wonder, when I see those toys strewn all over the living room floor, abandoned and neglected while Katie and little Mitch are sticking balls of Silly Putty in their ears, maybe kids should have some toys just for fun and nothing else?
After all, when I was a kid we didn't have all this stuff. We had little red wagons and toy cowboy pistols. We had Lincoln Logs, Matchbox cars, building blocks and our imaginations. I can remember a summer when I was 6 when my only new toy was a stick my dad helped me turn into a fishing pole. And that kept me busy seven days a week!
I'll tell you this much. I would rather see my kids play with a toy that they enjoy, that inspires them to run around and have fun and explore the world than some "educational" toy that they're going to sit around playing with for a few hours until they tire of it and never touch it again.
Heck, I'd even rather see them chase each other around the back yard with toy guns than sit inside with some pseudo-egghead puzzle or game that's supposed to make me feel better about spending fifty bucks!
You can’t open a newspaper or turn on a TV news program without somebody saying that today’s children are obese and inactive. And I see it all the time. My kids’ friends come over to play and I can’t help but notice that a lot of them are pretty chubby. And they come from good families, not the kind where the parents are feeding them Twinkies and plopping them in front of the TV for hours at a time. But a lot of these kids are coming over and playing with our “educational” computer math games, and just sitting on their butts!
This is what I’d like to see. I’d like people to let go of this idea that a toy has to be clearly “educational” for it to be worthwhile. I’d like people to consider other factors, like if the toy will get our kids moving around and playing actively, or if it will turn them into little couch potatoes. I’d like people to think about whether their kids will actually enjoy the toy, or whether it will sit untouched.
Let’s put away all these silly ideas about what’s right for our kids and just them be kids and have fun the old-fashioned way.
It's A High Tech Gadget World
In a world of increasing electronic technology the ubiquitous gadget has crawled out of the realm of science fiction and become an everyday part of our lives. Technically a gadget is any small appliance or device that serves a specific function. Gadgets tend to be fashioned in unique and novel ways to make them look more fashionable.
Early mechanical gadgets were the primary goal of inventors and artificers. One of the most useful of the early gadgets was the mechanical clock that allowed for more accurate time keeping in an increasingly industrial world. Modern science would not exist without the invention of the thermometer to accurately measure the heat of a substance. It can be truly stated that our civilization has been built with the aid of the many gadgets innovative people have created.
Now electronic gadgets are all around us. They are in the working processes of our automobiles and aircraft. Gadgets litter our homes and fill our pockets. Even the simple television remote control is a gadget that has changed the lives of countless people since its invention. The first electric calculator from Texas Instruments was a bulky desktop item that did not save much in size from its mechanical ancestor the adding machine. Now these helpful gadgets can be found slipped into even wristwatches and key chains.
The world of portable music has grown immense through the evolution of gadgets. Starting with transistor radios and moving on through the battery operated cassette tape player, music came out of the parlor and headed to the great outdoors. Digital technology increased its range while greatly shrinking the size of the gadget containing it.
Now the mp3 player makes it possible to carry an entire library of music with you in a package small enough to fit in your shirt pocket. Not to be outdone, the gadgeteers have developed increasingly powerful yet extremely small cameras to fit in these tiny devices. Now a pocket sized gadget no bigger than a playing card can hold a thousand songs and pictures and still have room left in its memory for an hour of video as well.
The cellular telephone is another of the gadgets that has left science fiction for the everyday world. From the idea of Captain Kirk's communicator and Dick Tracy's wristwatch have come the pocket sized go-anywhere telephones that use orbiting gadgets to connect you to just about anywhere in the world. With the right gadget in your hand you will not only be able to talk to someone a world away but see them in the video screen as well.
Programmable gadgets can use microprocessors to run a variety of functions and programs. Notebook computers have made it possible to take your office into the field for direct input and more efficient business. Some gadgets have been sent to other planets and out towards the stars in an effort to discover just what is in our universe.
If one were to pack up all the gadgets around their home and attempt to dispense with them, there would be little more left than a quiet shell. Man has defined himself by his tools and the gadgets he has created to make life easier and better are the crowning achievements of that tool making art. By making them in a variety of forms and sizes he has populated his world with a combined beauty and functionality that truly sets him apart from his humble pre-gadget ancestors.