Unstructured Time

There's a series of children's books written in the 1970s called Frog and Toad designed to help young people learn how to read. One of them - Frog and Toad Together - contains a short story called "A List." In it, Toad makes a list of all the things he has to do by the end of the day: wake up, eat breakfast, get dressed, and so forth. He then follows this script as his daily plan, never straying from it. As his day progresses, he scratches off items from the list.

Then a strong wind blows the list out of his hands.

Enter Frog. Toad immediately reaches out to Frog to chase after his list, because "running after my list is not one of the things I wrote on my list of things to do." Frog is unable to recover the list.

Despondent that he has lost his list, Toad does nothing. Frog writes a new list for Toad with a single entry, "go to bed." This Toad does, and he completes his day.

In addition to helping young people learn to read, it offers insight into very common workplace behaviours: Toad is a contract employee, Frog is his manager.

Toad does only as he is told to do, nothing more and nothing less. He isn't engaged in solving problems, he's simply performing tasks. Additional tasks that come his way that are pertinent to the problem he's working on are deflected to other people. (As an aside, if he works for a firm that supplies contract employees, those additional tasks would increase revenue for his firm.) And, of course, the loss of his task order left him idle and helpless rather than liberated to engage in more creative pursuits.

Frog, meanwhile, doesn't redirect Toad's energies in any meaningful way (nor does he furlough him, although that would be a bit of a stretch.) His priority is to restore order to his team.

There are some interesting lessons in this. Our children's lives are increasingly structured for them. They follow fixed routines of school, athletics and activities, which limits the times during which they can complete homework (a surprising volume of which is assigned to them in the very early stages of their academic careers). Because their daily lives are mapped out for them, they're constantly being told exactly what to do from minute to minute, which means they don't learn how to make best use of time. So it's valuable for a child to learn how to deal with - indeed, capitalize on - unstructured time, precisely because their lives are so highly structured in the first place.

It's also important that our children recognize the difference between performing tasks and solving problems. We can map out a series of steps that we need to take to accomplish a goal, but that series of steps is only as relevant as our current understanding of the problem space. If the problem space changes, we have to change with it if we're going to accomplish our goal. We also have to recognize this and make these changes independently and not constantly look for instruction from others. Sounds obvious, but we see it all the time at work, particularly in the Information Technology space, which is increasingly long on service-level agreements and short on results.

This is all a bit out of reach for a 6 year old, but it makes the story a lot more interesting when we read it together. But she does come up with some very creative things when she's left to her own devices.

Antiquity and Youth

Antique shows, flea markets and eBay have done big trade in nostalgia and collectables in recent years. Until recently, there has been a market for just about anything from toys to cookware that could bring back memories of the halcyon days of one's youth.

These things have some characteristics in common. To survive that long (and be available for sale somewhere), those items have to be of durable construction. To still be usable (and not simply very large paperweights) they have to be of simple technology. To be held in value, they have to be of recognized quality. To have staying power beyond a single generation, they have to be of timeless identity, and not products of fads.

This doesn’t describe the over-engineered, cheaply produced, pop culture dominated world in which our children are immersed today. We don’t build for durability, we build for consumption. We don’t define value systems, we define marketing messages. And we believe we improve everything by adding a battery.

Our creations today are infused with situational context: you need the right operating system, the right power source, the right hardware, and watch the right television shows if you are to get any use out of the things we create. Quality has become relative to context, not absolute to a standard. And, of course, today’s context will be tomorrow’s obsolescence. This means that the stuff we make today is “quality” more by matter of opinion or limited experience of the consumer than it is by fact. It also means that this stuff has a built-in expiration date of usefulness. It’s hard to imagine that 30 years hence our children will be ecstatic to discover a Hanna Montana DVD. It’s hard to imagine they’ll remember what either is.

There are some things – furniture, musical instruments, even houses – that are functional and timeless. They represent craftsmanship and values of those who came before us. If we are fortunate enough to have something like this in our care, we are aware that it is in our possession not so much to be consumed as to be taken care of for another generation.

This is, of course, a subtle lesson that "it isn't all about us" after all. But there is also something to be said for sustainable consumption. If we don't teach our children to value "sustainability" in ordinary things, how will they learn to apply it to their relationships with one another?

"Partnershipping" is a Perfectly Cromulent Word

In the The Simpsons, the Springfield city motto is: "A noble spirit embiggens the smallest man." In the episode Lisa the Iconoclast, elementary school teacher Edna Krabappel challenges the legitimacy of the word "embiggens," only to be swiftly dismissed by another teacher: "it's a perfectly cromulent word."

The other night, my daughter's school held a curriculum night, intended to give parents direct visibility into the people, process and content of the school. During an address to the parents, faculty and staff, the superintendent used the word "partnershipping." Not "partnering," but "partnershipping."

It's a perfectly cromulent word.

I feel embiggened.

The Real versus The Contrived

Stealing away for a few final days of summer at a place with a lot of outdoor activities (swimming, canoeing/kayaking, hiking, etc.) makes clear how far removed we are from the world around us. We go to great lengths to recreate natural experiences artificially, and we add layers to insulate us from the world around us.

This disconnect from the world is a Faustian exchange as it denies us the full experience of life. There is simply no comparison between swimming in a spring-fed lake and taking a chemical bath in a pool. Nor is there between the experience of canoeing and powerboating. Gliding over the water under your own power, a wake the only footprint of your presence, lets you pause to witness first-hand the intricacies of life. By comparison, repeatedly going in circles through the water at full engine-assisted throttle not only ignores nature, it creates an exhaust “leave behind” that scars the waterscape. Even perambulating has surprising upside. A short hike on a footpath is a form of time-travel: taking a trail trodden for over a century gives exposure to all kind of “postcards” left by those who came before, the thoughtful time-capsules that document history and change of a place.

The real world is never that far away, and it’s great fun when we’re fully exposed to it. But breaking free to find it takes concerted effort. We’ve contrived our own world to insulate us from the real one. We’re completely insulated from it in our day-to-day. That contrived world, as sensory-encompassing as it may be with sounds, imagery, priorities, urgency and so forth, is of comically limited depth: no artificial system is as resilient as even the most primitive ecosystem.

As parents, we have an obligation to make the real world accessible to our children. From a young age, they build points of reference that are resilient to an ever-expanding plasticine layer. As they mature, these sustainable connections will enable them to recognize and appreciate the difference between the real and the contrived.

It isn't edutainment, it just fills time

Somewhere along the way, programming for children became sanitized claptrap designed to sell merchandise more than entertain by story telling.

What passes for plot are combinations of shallow storylines masquerading as problem solving, situational "dramas" (as much drama as there can be in the life of a person in a midddle-class, stable household who is under the legal age to vote, drive, work and consume alcohol) where nobody comes out a loser, and mindless, lightweight action sequences that stretch episodes to fill network program slots. There are no fables, parables or stories being told. There are no distinct characters. There are no winners and losers. Children's programs are just time fillers.

Of course, by being nothing but eye candy, these programs run little risk of being offensive. This creates commercial upside. By ostensibly offering educational value, they blunt the guilt parents feel for putting their children in front of the photon-blasting nanny for hours on end. This increases viewership counts and “brand awareness.” The absence of even a hint of something which may offend defaults these shows into a state of “mass appeal.” This, in turn, translates into other revenue streams, as merchandise bearing their likeness are a "safe" gift to children in just about any household.

Contrast this to children's entertainment of previous generations. The studios owned by the brothers Warner produced hundreds of action-packed mini-dramas that told a story with genuine characters. In a seven-minute short, they offer a far greater insight into life lessons: the progression of axe-pistol-shotgun-cannon-flowers-chocolates-engagement ring-wedding dress-wedding is representative of life coming at you fast. These brief episodes also introduce us to the types of people we deal with on a daily basis. Sylvester the Cat or Wile E. Coyote needing to secure at any cost mouse or bird for their next meal is the salesperson needing to close the next deal to make quarterly targets. Elmer Fudd, a vegetarian who hunts for sport, is the corporate leader with wealth considerably beyond his needs for sustenance who is hyper-competitive strictly for reasons of ego. Foghorn Leghorn is a loud mouth schmuck to his cube- I mean, barnyard-mates.

But these cartoons aren't educational! That’s ok, they tell good stories. Children recognize the difference between mindless, shallow forms of entertainment and content that is both deep and complex. They're too violent! Children aren't idiots. For the most part, they have an intuitive understanding of basic concepts of physics such as gravity, or force == mass x acceleration, or the destructive power of different forms of weaponry (ranging from anvil to firearm to disintegrator). It isn’t the responsibility of television to instill this appreciation, it's our responsibility as parents to teach them these things. Cartoons won’t "desensitize" factual knowledge tought by people. Indeed, statistically we've seen neither rise nor drop in incidents of free-falling anvil-related injuries in the last 50 years with the comings and goings of these cartoon shorts on broadcast television.

Besides, where else is a 6 year old going to learn how to conduct an orchestra? It's a handy skill when learning to appreciate Beethoven.

Rhythm in Life

It’s a rare opportunity to be able to share with a child the experience of a live performance of something that is timeless in character. We heard Dave Brubeck play live last week. He’s an outstanding pianist, and surrounds himself with equally outstanding musicians.

He's best known for music of different rhythms: Take Five is in 5/4 time, Blue Rondo à la Turk is in 9/8. These are unusual rhythms, common time being four beats per measure. Both Take Five and Blue Rondo are (for most people, anyway) intrinsically appealing, even if the source of the appeal remains a mystery to most.

Recognising what makes these pieces unique is itself a form of meta-awareness. Rhythm, like harmony, isn’t always something we notice. Rhythm isn’t the centerpiece of music. It isn't even in the background. It just is.

So it is in life. We encounter people who "march to the beat of a different drummer." We may hold them out to be oddballs, or we may find them mysteriously appealing. The question remains whether we see everything there is to see about a person so that we understand why it is we see them the way that we do. We don't usually look for "rhythm," so we don't always recognise it in other people. Something that forms a significant portion of our impression of other people is below the radar. It’s just there. It takes meta-awareness to notice it at all.

It isn’t clear yet whether my daughter even marginally appreciates the experience of hearing Dave Brubeck perform live. Maybe the next time she hears “Take Five” on the streaming audio server at home she’ll notice what isn’t there: the improv of the live performance that isn't in the studio recording. Perhaps she’ll be aware of the music she doesn't hear.

Or perhaps not. She's only 6.

But she will know what is in the frame, snapping her fingers as she counts out the rhythm while Dave and the band play: 1-2-3-4-5-1-2-3-4-5 …

Situational Awareness

Sometimes, we are to our children as the Acme Corporation is to Wile E. Coyote: we supply equipment that enables the pursuit of some objective, only for the pursuit to end in misadventure. While these are certainly opportunities to teach responsibility, determination, or just better hand-eye coordination, they are also opportunities to help our children develop situational awareness.

From the perspective of executor, it is difficult to critically root-cause the reasons for our successes and failures. We must learn how to externalize so that we recognize the difference among execution failure (the Coyote flying of his own volition with the aid of the Acme Bat-Man costume, only to slam into a mountain because he didn’t have his eyes open), situational failure (being run over by a truck whilst setting a trap using “free bird seed” as the bait), and structural error (powering up the outsized electro-magnet and attracting every sizable metal object – steam rollers, boats, busses – in a very large geographic region and thus becoming the target of his own plan.)

By looking holistically and retrospecting an entire situation and outcome, we learn that it is worth iterating through some pursuits (note to self: keep eyes open), while others are just outright bad ideas (question to self: could what I am about to do become a self-targeted missile?) And it’s important to know when we failed but have no data points on the fitness of our solution, as the proverbial truck will trump the best laid plans of coyotes and men.

Society doesn’t necessarily value this. It encourages us to deny responsibility and be victims of outcomes rather than responsible for them. Is not the Acme Corporation responsible for the misadventure of the coyote? Does the manual to the Bat-Man costume explicitly require that the operator keep his or her eyes open at all times? And what business do they have selling such a powerful electro-magnet in the first place? Whether the coyote is a Super Genius or not is irrelevant; the Acme Corporation is culpable!

Understanding as completely as we can the spectrum of events that form both situation and result allows us to take better informed decisions and improve our quality of life. It gives us independence and greater confidence in our future actions, things we do not get if we deny the responsibility we have for our fate. But it is up to us to develop this capability - and stress the value of it - to our children. In a blameless society, constructive-critical self-assessment is not something our children are likely to learn from anybody else.