Calling All Minds

Calling All Minds

Temple Grandin would like kids and teens to shut off their
electronic devices and engage in the real world.
"The future holds many critical challenges, such as
understanding the impact of climate change, curing diseases, and
ending hunger. We need all kinds of minds if we are going to figure
out how to adapt. If we lose the ability to make things, we lose a
whole lot more. We need people who can cast iron and chemists who can
create new materials that are lighter and stronger than metal. We
need storytellers, filmmakers, musicians, and artists. We need new
technologies to explore the future, including a deeper and more
complex understanding of the earth and the ocean and the galaxies."
In her Calling All Minds: How to Think and Create Like an
Inventor Grandin provides future innovators with a good start on a
path to hands on discovery and creativity. At the heart of the book
are instructions for 25 family friendly projects such as a
kaleidescope, a water bomb, a helicoptor, kites, and stilts. There's
also background on why these devices work, stories from her own life,
and narratives of the way inventions and discoveries ranging from
antibiotics to Velcro took place.
I think this book is particularly important for the hands on
learners who have plenty of STEM potential but are too often written
off in favor of more book and test savvy peers. As Grandin says, we
need all kinds of minds.
On a personal note, my partner is one of these really smart hands on
people. I don't know how to convince him that he rocks intelligence.
He built a camp with a porch and sleeping loft that combines aesthetic
lines with the sturdiness to withstand all Maine winters have to dish
out without even a blueprint. It was all in his head. He says anyone
can. Ummm no. I have a hypothesis that if he and 6 PhDs were
parachuted into the aboriginal forests, a plane returning six months
later would pick up him and six cadavers. I'm one of the book smart
people and I know there are areas in which he's way ahead of me.
A great big shout out goes out to Eugene and all the other hands on
smart people society has yet to develop to rock and take pride in
their beautiful potential.
jules hathaway




Sent from my iPod