WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:05.000 Welcome to "Five Dangerous Things You Should Let Your Children Do." 00:00:05.000 --> 00:00:07.000 I don't have children. 00:00:07.000 --> 00:00:09.000 I borrow my friends' children, so 00:00:09.000 --> 00:00:12.000 (Laughter) 00:00:13.000 --> 00:00:15.000 take all this advice with a grain of salt. 00:00:15.000 --> 00:00:18.000 I'm Gever Tulley. 00:00:18.000 --> 00:00:22.000 I'm a contract computer scientist by trade, 00:00:22.000 --> 00:00:27.000 but I'm the founder of something called the Tinkering School. 00:00:27.000 --> 00:00:30.000 It's a summer program which aims to help kids to learn 00:00:30.000 --> 00:00:33.000 how to build the things that they think of. 00:00:33.000 --> 00:00:35.000 So we build a lot of things. 00:00:35.000 --> 00:00:38.000 And I do put power tools into the hands of second-graders. 00:00:38.000 --> 00:00:42.000 So if you're thinking about sending your kid to Tinkering School, 00:00:42.000 --> 00:00:45.000 they do come back bruised, scraped and bloody. 00:00:47.000 --> 00:00:49.000 So, you know, we live in a world 00:00:49.000 --> 00:00:53.000 that's subjected to ever more stringent child safety regulations. 00:00:53.000 --> 00:00:59.000 There doesn't seem to be any limit on how crazy 00:00:59.000 --> 00:01:01.000 child safety regulations can get. 00:01:01.000 --> 00:01:06.000 We put suffocation warnings on all the -- on every piece of plastic film 00:01:06.000 --> 00:01:08.000 manufactured in the United States or for sale 00:01:08.000 --> 00:01:10.000 with an item in the United States. 00:01:10.000 --> 00:01:13.000 We put warnings on coffee cups to tell us 00:01:13.000 --> 00:01:16.000 that the contents may be hot. 00:01:16.000 --> 00:01:20.000 And we seem to think that any item 00:01:20.000 --> 00:01:22.000 sharper than a golf ball is too sharp 00:01:22.000 --> 00:01:24.000 for children under the age of 10. NOTE Paragraph 00:01:24.000 --> 00:01:28.000 So where does this trend stop? 00:01:28.000 --> 00:01:33.000 When we round every corner and eliminate every sharp object, 00:01:33.000 --> 00:01:35.000 every pokey bit in the world, 00:01:36.000 --> 00:01:40.000 then the first time that kids come in contact with anything sharp 00:01:40.000 --> 00:01:43.000 or not made out of round plastic, 00:01:43.000 --> 00:01:45.000 they'll hurt themselves with it. 00:01:46.000 --> 00:01:52.000 So, as the boundaries of what we determine as the safety zone 00:01:52.000 --> 00:01:58.000 grow ever smaller, we cut off our children from valuable opportunities 00:01:58.000 --> 00:02:00.000 to learn how to interact with the world around them. 00:02:01.000 --> 00:02:05.000 And despite all of our best efforts and intentions, 00:02:05.000 --> 00:02:06.000 kids are always going to figure out 00:02:06.000 --> 00:02:09.000 how to do the most dangerous thing they can, 00:02:09.000 --> 00:02:11.000 in whatever environment they can. 00:02:12.000 --> 00:02:18.000 So despite the provocative title, this presentation is really about safety 00:02:19.000 --> 00:02:23.000 and about some simple things that we can do 00:02:23.000 --> 00:02:29.000 to raise our kids to be creative, confident 00:02:29.000 --> 00:02:31.000 and in control of the environment around them. 00:02:32.000 --> 00:02:37.000 And what I now present to you is an excerpt from a book in progress. 00:02:38.000 --> 00:02:40.000 The book is called "50 Dangerous Things." 00:02:40.000 --> 00:02:42.000 This is five dangerous things. NOTE Paragraph 00:02:42.000 --> 00:02:45.000 Thing number one -- play with fire. 00:02:45.000 --> 00:02:50.000 Learning to control one of the most elemental forces in nature 00:02:50.000 --> 00:02:54.000 is a pivotal moment in any child's personal history. 00:02:54.000 --> 00:02:56.000 Whether we remember it or not, 00:02:56.000 --> 00:02:59.000 it's a -- it's the first time we really get 00:02:59.000 --> 00:03:02.000 control of one of these mysterious things. 00:03:02.000 --> 00:03:04.000 These mysteries are only revealed 00:03:04.000 --> 00:03:06.000 to those who get the opportunity to play with it. 00:03:06.000 --> 00:03:09.000 So, playing with fire. 00:03:09.000 --> 00:03:15.000 This is like one of the great things we ever discovered, fire. 00:03:15.000 --> 00:03:18.000 From playing with it, they learn some basic principles about fire, 00:03:18.000 --> 00:03:22.000 about intake, about combustion, about exhaust. 00:03:22.000 --> 00:03:24.000 These are the three working elements of fire 00:03:24.000 --> 00:03:27.000 that you have to have to have a good controlled fire. 00:03:27.000 --> 00:03:32.000 And you can think of the open-pit fire as a laboratory. 00:03:32.000 --> 00:03:34.000 You don't know what they're going to learn from playing with it. 00:03:34.000 --> 00:03:39.000 You know, let them fool around with it on their own terms and trust me, 00:03:40.000 --> 00:03:42.000 they're going to learn things 00:03:42.000 --> 00:03:47.000 that you can't get out of playing with Dora the Explorer toys. NOTE Paragraph 00:03:48.000 --> 00:03:51.000 Number two -- own a pocketknife. 00:03:51.000 --> 00:03:55.000 Pocketknives are kind of drifting out of our cultural consciousness, 00:03:56.000 --> 00:03:58.000 which I think is a terrible thing. 00:03:58.000 --> 00:04:01.000 (Laughter) 00:04:02.000 --> 00:04:07.000 Your first -- your first pocketknife is like the first universal tool that you're given. 00:04:07.000 --> 00:04:10.000 You know, it's a spatula, it's a pry bar, 00:04:10.000 --> 00:04:13.000 it's a screwdriver and it's a blade. 00:04:13.000 --> 00:04:18.000 And it's a -- it's a powerful and empowering tool. 00:04:18.000 --> 00:04:21.000 And in a lot of cultures they give knives -- 00:04:21.000 --> 00:04:23.000 like, as soon as they're toddlers they have knives. 00:04:23.000 --> 00:04:27.000 These are Inuit children cutting whale blubber. 00:04:27.000 --> 00:04:31.000 I first saw this in a Canadian Film Board film when I was 10, 00:04:31.000 --> 00:04:35.000 and it left a lasting impression, to see babies playing with knives. 00:04:35.000 --> 00:04:39.000 And it shows that kids can develop an extended sense of self 00:04:39.000 --> 00:04:41.000 through a tool at a very young age. 00:04:41.000 --> 00:04:43.000 You lay down a couple of very simple rules -- 00:04:44.000 --> 00:04:49.000 always cut away from your body, keep the blade sharp, never force it 00:04:49.000 --> 00:04:52.000 -- and these are things kids can understand and practice with. 00:04:52.000 --> 00:04:53.000 And yeah, they're going to cut themselves. 00:04:53.000 --> 00:04:56.000 I have some terrible scars on my legs from where I stabbed myself. 00:04:57.000 --> 00:04:59.000 But you know, they're young. They heal fast. 00:04:59.000 --> 00:05:03.000 (Laughter) NOTE Paragraph 00:05:03.000 --> 00:05:05.000 Number three -- throw a spear. 00:05:06.000 --> 00:05:10.000 It turns out that our brains are actually wired for throwing things 00:05:10.000 --> 00:05:15.000 and, like muscles, if you don't use parts of your brain, 00:05:15.000 --> 00:05:17.000 they tend to atrophy over time. 00:05:18.000 --> 00:05:21.000 But when you exercise them, 00:05:21.000 --> 00:05:23.000 any given muscle adds strength to the whole system 00:05:23.000 --> 00:05:25.000 and that applies to your brain too. 00:05:26.000 --> 00:05:30.000 So practicing throwing things has been shown to 00:05:30.000 --> 00:05:33.000 stimulate the frontal and parietal lobes, 00:05:33.000 --> 00:05:38.000 which have to do with visual acuity, 3D understanding, 00:05:38.000 --> 00:05:43.000 and structural problem solving, so it gives a sense -- 00:05:43.000 --> 00:05:47.000 it helps develop their visualization skills and their predictive ability. 00:05:48.000 --> 00:05:53.000 And throwing is a combination of analytical and physical skill, 00:05:53.000 --> 00:05:57.000 so it's very good for that kind of whole-body training. 00:05:57.000 --> 00:06:03.000 These kinds of target-based practice also 00:06:03.000 --> 00:06:08.000 helps kids develop attention and concentration skills. 00:06:08.000 --> 00:06:10.000 So those are great. NOTE Paragraph 00:06:10.000 --> 00:06:14.000 Number four -- deconstruct appliances. 00:06:14.000 --> 00:06:18.000 There is a world of interesting things inside your dishwasher. 00:06:18.000 --> 00:06:23.000 Next time you're about to throw out an appliance, don't throw it out. 00:06:23.000 --> 00:06:26.000 Take it apart with your kid, or send him to my school 00:06:26.000 --> 00:06:28.000 and we'll take it apart with them. 00:06:28.000 --> 00:06:30.000 Even if you don't know what the parts are, 00:06:30.000 --> 00:06:33.000 puzzling out what they might be for 00:06:33.000 --> 00:06:36.000 is a really good practice for the kids 00:06:36.000 --> 00:06:42.000 to get sort of the sense that they can take things apart, 00:06:42.000 --> 00:06:44.000 and no matter how complex they are, 00:06:44.000 --> 00:06:48.000 they can understand parts of them and that means that eventually, 00:06:48.000 --> 00:06:50.000 they can understand all of them. 00:06:50.000 --> 00:06:53.000 It's a sense of knowability, that something is knowable. 00:06:54.000 --> 00:06:57.000 So these black boxes that we live with and take for granted 00:06:57.000 --> 00:07:01.000 are actually complex things made by other people 00:07:01.000 --> 00:07:03.000 and you can understand them. NOTE Paragraph 00:07:03.000 --> 00:07:07.000 Number five -- two-parter. 00:07:07.000 --> 00:07:09.000 Break the Digital Millennium Copyright Act. 00:07:09.000 --> 00:07:12.000 (Laughter) 00:07:12.000 --> 00:07:15.000 There are laws beyond safety regulations 00:07:15.000 --> 00:07:18.000 that attempt to limit how we can interact with the things 00:07:18.000 --> 00:07:20.000 that we own -- in this case, digital media. 00:07:21.000 --> 00:07:28.000 It's a very simple exercise -- buy a song on ITunes, write it to a CD, 00:07:28.000 --> 00:07:31.000 then rip the CD to an MP3 and play it on your very same computer. 00:07:31.000 --> 00:07:33.000 You've just broken a law. 00:07:33.000 --> 00:07:37.000 Technically the RIAA can come and persecute you. 00:07:37.000 --> 00:07:39.000 It's an important lesson for kids to understand -- 00:07:39.000 --> 00:07:43.000 that some of these laws get broken by accident 00:07:43.000 --> 00:07:45.000 and that laws have to be interpreted. 00:07:45.000 --> 00:07:48.000 And it's something we often talk about with the kids 00:07:48.000 --> 00:07:52.000 when we're fooling around with things and breaking them open 00:07:52.000 --> 00:07:55.000 and taking them apart and using them for other things -- 00:07:55.000 --> 00:08:00.000 and also when we go out and drive a car. 00:08:01.000 --> 00:08:05.000 Driving a car is a -- is a really empowering act for a young child, 00:08:05.000 --> 00:08:07.000 so this is the ultimate. 00:08:07.000 --> 00:08:09.000 (Laughter) NOTE Paragraph 00:08:09.000 --> 00:08:13.000 For those of you who aren't comfortable actually breaking the law, 00:08:13.000 --> 00:08:16.000 you can drive a car with your child. 00:08:16.000 --> 00:08:19.000 This is -- this is a great stage for a kid. 00:08:19.000 --> 00:08:21.000 This happens about the same time 00:08:21.000 --> 00:08:24.000 that they get latched onto things like dinosaurs, 00:08:24.000 --> 00:08:26.000 these big things in the outside world 00:08:26.000 --> 00:08:28.000 that they're trying to get a grip on. 00:08:28.000 --> 00:08:33.000 A car is a similar object, and they can get in a car and drive it. 00:08:33.000 --> 00:08:37.000 And that's a really, like -- it gives them a handle on a world 00:08:37.000 --> 00:08:42.000 in a way that they wouldn't -- that they don't often have access to. 00:08:42.000 --> 00:08:44.000 So -- and it's perfectly legal. 00:08:44.000 --> 00:08:46.000 Find a big empty lot, make sure there's nothing in it 00:08:46.000 --> 00:08:50.000 and it's on private property, and let them drive your car. 00:08:50.000 --> 00:08:52.000 It's very safe actually. 00:08:52.000 --> 00:08:54.000 And it's fun for the whole family. 00:08:54.000 --> 00:08:56.000 (Laughter) 00:08:56.000 --> 00:08:58.000 So, let's see. 00:08:58.000 --> 00:09:01.000 I think that's it. That's number five and a half. OK.