Recently I met a family at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. They had traveled from France to spend some time in New York City, and the mother and daughter were participating in one of the children's programs at the Met. Where were the two elder children? After snapping pictures furiously in Times Square, they had returned to their hotel room to post all their photos to Facebook. Yes, they had declined a visit to one of the greatest art museums in the world in order to sit in front of a little glowing screen.
Learning to be present
Perhaps the greatest challenge for this technological generation will be to learn to be present. One can only be attentive by focusing one's attention. One can only master a craft or skill by sustained attention. And if a child would prefer to sit in a hotel room rather than see the original works of Rodin, Van Gogh, Picaso and others, is it reasonable to expect that if they did walk the cavernous galleries of the Met that they would be able to focus on and appreciate one of its artifacts? Or would they be to obsessed with snapping a picture with their iPhones, and uploading them to Facebook?
Learning to focus
How does a child - or anyone - learn to focus? By doing it. There is no shortcut to mastery of any worthy skill. Did Yo-yo Ma become a great cellist without countless hours of practice? Did Tiger Woods become one of the greatest golfers of all time without tens of thousands of hours on the green? There simply is no substitute for doing.
How can parents help? I'm glad you asked. That will be the topic of the next post.
What are the valuable twenty-first-century skills?
February 5, 2010
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apprenticeship, discipline
