I recently read a story of how a tourist walked off an Australian pier while checking her Facebook. I felt badly that she plummeted into chilly waters, but I was most troubled how oblivious she was to the beauty she was surrounded by. What came to mind was a quote by Albert Einstein (3.14.1879), “ I fear the day that technology will surpass our human interaction. The world will have a generation of idiots.”
I worry that children attached to their devices are being robbed of their childhood. I also worry about how parents, also attached to their devices, are missing out on connecting with children in meaningful ways that build a strong parent child bond.
Think about this: “ If the computer has become the new playground for children, then we must ask what are they playing, who are they meeting there and what are they learning?”
Parents hear all the time how important it is to read to their children. What I hope they know is that while reading to a child is of the utmost importance, it is not the endgame. The real benefits of the reading experience happen as soon as the book comes to an end and the conversation about the book begins.
Reading stories nourishes a child’s creativity and imagination. Those 26 black marks, the meaning of the words, the implications of those meanings, these are all the products of the readers’ imagination. Reading challenges the imagination to go beyond the immediate and familiar, to create something new. Books give kids something that is provided by nothing else. That something, simply put, is the unknown. The imagination flows toward that which is not known, the familiar does not inspire it, but it surges spontaneously at the slightest opportunity for mystery and adventure. The imagination is a hunter who loves the challenge and the chase.
Einstein is well known for his genius and I think much of his brilliance came from his imagination. He did say, the imagination was “more important than knowledge.”
