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Don't Get All Up in My Grill!
If you opened your window last weekend, you could hear it: homeowners across this great country walked out into their backyards, pulled the grill covers off their gas grills after a long hard winter, dusted them off, opened the lid, and cursed, …Read more.
Hair Today
In the news last week, we learned that as a high school student, Mitt Romney held down another boy in school with long hair and gave him a forced haircut.
I am not weighing in on the story, because I have a rule. I never discuss politics in my …Read more.
Fighting Against Sensorship – in the Bathroom
When our great, great grandparents wanted to find water, they got themselves a forked stick, walked all over their property with that stick stuck out in front of them, and when the stick pointed itself at the ground, they'd dig a well. It wasn't …Read more.
Shape Up or Ship Out
For the past year or so, I've been making a concerted effort to not get in worse shape. Some people make resolutions to actually get in better shape, but mine was more simple and straightforward — I'd like to simply maintain my present …Read more.
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Rubik's RevengeThe other day, my twin 15-year-old daughters came home from school hunched over, each engrossed in a Rubik's Cube. If you weren't around in the 1970s, a Rubik's Cube is a square block made up of other little multi-colored blocks. Ideally, a (smart) child takes this block, concentrates really hard, turns the little squares, and ends up with all the little blocks neatly arranged with all blocks on each side of just one color. In reality, however, the Rubik's Cube was so hard to solve that it was responsible for an entire generation of kids learning that they weren't really all that smart and ought to consider a trade. It was kind of like a toy, but kind of like the SATs. Throughout the '70s, Rubik's Cubes could be found down couch cushions, under beds, and sometimes thrown out windows. They were not — at least by anyone I ever met — solved. As a kid, I found the Rubik's Cube to be so frustrating that I took mine and pried it apart with a hammer and screwdriver to see how it was made. (The only thing I learned was that my parents seemed to agree that I wasn't all that smart.) The one consoling factor was that nobody else in town had solved their cubes, either. One kid actually brought a "solved" cube to school to show off, but it turned out he had soaked the little plastic squares off and re-glued them in order to fake a solution. I cursed myself for not thinking of that before I went at mine with a screwdriver. So when my daughters came in the door, I was a little perplexed. It was as if they had walked in carrying pet rocks, wearing mood rings and humming a Sean Cassidy song. (If you weren't alive in the '70s, these things were ... never mind. It would only make you realize how sad it was to be alive in the '70s.) I asked them what was up and found they'd been given the cubes as, of all things, a math assignment. Solving the Rubik's Cube, they said, was a way to learn algorithms. They then explained that algorithms were "sequences of moves that have a desired effect" and were a very, very important concept in learning higher forms of math. My first reaction was to tell them their teacher was dead wrong.
I watched as my daughters studiously worked away at their cubes. This was not a game anymore. They had elaborate cheat sheets that gave them step-by-step instructions. Once they'd solved the cube using the cheat sheets, the goal was to be able to memorize the algorithm and accomplish the feat without referring to the directions. Then it was to increase their time and ... (I only half-listened to this part. I was still fuming just a little bit about my Al Gore joke. Kids these days are smart, but they don't have very good senses of humor.) As I watched them work away at their cubes, I realized that this generation of kids has a whole lot more on their plate than I did. Teenagers these days are expected to understand all kinds of things that I wasn't even close to figuring out. (As a teenager, for instance, I did not know what an algorithm was. I actually believed there was a scientific principal at work in a mood ring.) Teenagers today need to know by the age of 15 what college they want to go to, what they're going to major in and where they want to work as an adult. I'm surprised we don't corral 15-year-olds and make them commit to a certain level of 401(k) contribution. (At 15, I was torn: Should I pursue a career as an international super-spy, a rock star or — and I know this sounds a little impractical — a captain of the Star Trek Enterprise?) As I sat there idly while my daughters increased their brainpower, it hit me: I honestly didn't know if you were able to freeze 15-year-old me for a few decades and thaw me out (another scientific principal I thought was real) whether I could survive as a teenager in today's world. As my daughters kept explaining the theories behind solving the cube, I quietly got up from my chair, slipped out the door and started looking for my hammer and screwdriver. To find out more about Peter McKay, please visit www.creators.com. COPYRIGHT 2011 CREATORS.COM
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