ABOUT THE SPEAKER
Gever Tulley - Tinkerer
The founder of the Tinkering School, Gever Tulley likes to build things with kids.

Why you should listen

Gever Tulley writes the best Twitters: Just landed my paraglider in an empty field behind Santa 8arbara. ... Making amazing tshirts with a laser cutter at the maker faire in austin. ... Washing fruit, putting sheets on bunkbeds, and grinding up aluminum foil in a cheap blender ... Updating the school blog, trying to figure out how many cubic feet of air are in a 5 gallon cylinder at 200 PSI. ... Trying to figure out if the tinker kids are going to be able to get molten iron from magnetite sand ...

A software engineer, Gever Tulley is the co-founder of the Tinkering School, a weeklong camp where lucky kids get to play with their very own power tools. He's interested in helping kids learn how to build, solve problems, use new materials and hack old ones for new purposes. He's also a certified paragliding instructor.

More profile about the speaker
Gever Tulley | Speaker | TED.com
TED2007

Gever Tulley: 5 dangerous things you should let your kids do

Filmed:
5,050,524 views

At TED U, Gever Tulley, founder of the Tinkering School, spells out 5 dangerous things you should let your kids do -- and why a little danger is good for both kids and grownups.
- Tinkerer
The founder of the Tinkering School, Gever Tulley likes to build things with kids. Full bio

Double-click the English transcript below to play the video.

00:13
Welcome to "Five Dangerous Things You Should Let Your Children Do."
0
0
5000
00:18
I don't have children.
1
5000
2000
00:20
I borrow my friends' children, so
2
7000
2000
00:22
(Laughter)
3
9000
3000
00:26
take all this advice with a grain of salt.
4
13000
2000
00:28
I'm Gever Tulley.
5
15000
3000
00:31
I'm a contract computer scientist by trade,
6
18000
4000
00:35
but I'm the founder of something called the Tinkering School.
7
22000
5000
00:40
It's a summer program which aims to help kids to learn
8
27000
3000
00:43
how to build the things that they think of.
9
30000
3000
00:46
So we build a lot of things.
10
33000
2000
00:48
And I do put power tools into the hands of second-graders.
11
35000
3000
00:51
So if you're thinking about sending your kid to Tinkering School,
12
38000
4000
00:55
they do come back bruised, scraped and bloody.
13
42000
3000
01:00
So, you know, we live in a world
14
47000
2000
01:02
that's subjected to ever more stringent child safety regulations.
15
49000
4000
01:06
There doesn't seem to be any limit on how crazy
16
53000
6000
01:12
child safety regulations can get.
17
59000
2000
01:14
We put suffocation warnings on all the -- on every piece of plastic film
18
61000
5000
01:19
manufactured in the United States or for sale
19
66000
2000
01:21
with an item in the United States.
20
68000
2000
01:23
We put warnings on coffee cups to tell us
21
70000
3000
01:26
that the contents may be hot.
22
73000
3000
01:29
And we seem to think that any item
23
76000
4000
01:33
sharper than a golf ball is too sharp
24
80000
2000
01:35
for children under the age of 10.
25
82000
2000
01:37
So where does this trend stop?
26
84000
4000
01:41
When we round every corner and eliminate every sharp object,
27
88000
5000
01:46
every pokey bit in the world,
28
93000
2000
01:49
then the first time that kids come in contact with anything sharp
29
96000
4000
01:53
or not made out of round plastic,
30
100000
3000
01:56
they'll hurt themselves with it.
31
103000
2000
01:59
So, as the boundaries of what we determine as the safety zone
32
106000
6000
02:05
grow ever smaller, we cut off our children from valuable opportunities
33
112000
6000
02:11
to learn how to interact with the world around them.
34
118000
2000
02:14
And despite all of our best efforts and intentions,
35
121000
4000
02:18
kids are always going to figure out
36
125000
1000
02:19
how to do the most dangerous thing they can,
37
126000
3000
02:22
in whatever environment they can.
38
129000
2000
02:25
So despite the provocative title, this presentation is really about safety
39
132000
6000
02:32
and about some simple things that we can do
40
139000
4000
02:36
to raise our kids to be creative, confident
41
143000
6000
02:42
and in control of the environment around them.
42
149000
2000
02:45
And what I now present to you is an excerpt from a book in progress.
43
152000
5000
02:51
The book is called "50 Dangerous Things."
44
158000
2000
02:53
This is five dangerous things.
45
160000
2000
02:55
Thing number one -- play with fire.
46
162000
3000
02:58
Learning to control one of the most elemental forces in nature
47
165000
5000
03:03
is a pivotal moment in any child's personal history.
48
170000
4000
03:07
Whether we remember it or not,
49
174000
2000
03:09
it's a -- it's the first time we really get
50
176000
3000
03:12
control of one of these mysterious things.
51
179000
3000
03:15
These mysteries are only revealed
52
182000
2000
03:17
to those who get the opportunity to play with it.
53
184000
2000
03:19
So, playing with fire.
54
186000
3000
03:22
This is like one of the great things we ever discovered, fire.
55
189000
6000
03:28
From playing with it, they learn some basic principles about fire,
56
195000
3000
03:31
about intake, about combustion, about exhaust.
57
198000
4000
03:35
These are the three working elements of fire
58
202000
2000
03:37
that you have to have to have a good controlled fire.
59
204000
3000
03:40
And you can think of the open-pit fire as a laboratory.
60
207000
5000
03:45
You don't know what they're going to learn from playing with it.
61
212000
2000
03:47
You know, let them fool around with it on their own terms and trust me,
62
214000
5000
03:53
they're going to learn things
63
220000
2000
03:55
that you can't get out of playing with Dora the Explorer toys.
64
222000
5000
04:01
Number two -- own a pocketknife.
65
228000
3000
04:04
Pocketknives are kind of drifting out of our cultural consciousness,
66
231000
4000
04:09
which I think is a terrible thing.
67
236000
2000
04:11
(Laughter)
68
238000
3000
04:15
Your first -- your first pocketknife is like the first universal tool that you're given.
69
242000
5000
04:20
You know, it's a spatula, it's a pry bar,
70
247000
3000
04:23
it's a screwdriver and it's a blade.
71
250000
3000
04:26
And it's a -- it's a powerful and empowering tool.
72
253000
5000
04:31
And in a lot of cultures they give knives --
73
258000
3000
04:34
like, as soon as they're toddlers they have knives.
74
261000
2000
04:36
These are Inuit children cutting whale blubber.
75
263000
4000
04:40
I first saw this in a Canadian Film Board film when I was 10,
76
267000
4000
04:44
and it left a lasting impression, to see babies playing with knives.
77
271000
4000
04:48
And it shows that kids can develop an extended sense of self
78
275000
4000
04:52
through a tool at a very young age.
79
279000
2000
04:54
You lay down a couple of very simple rules --
80
281000
2000
04:57
always cut away from your body, keep the blade sharp, never force it
81
284000
5000
05:02
-- and these are things kids can understand and practice with.
82
289000
3000
05:05
And yeah, they're going to cut themselves.
83
292000
1000
05:06
I have some terrible scars on my legs from where I stabbed myself.
84
293000
3000
05:10
But you know, they're young. They heal fast.
85
297000
2000
05:12
(Laughter)
86
299000
4000
05:16
Number three -- throw a spear.
87
303000
2000
05:19
It turns out that our brains are actually wired for throwing things
88
306000
4000
05:23
and, like muscles, if you don't use parts of your brain,
89
310000
5000
05:28
they tend to atrophy over time.
90
315000
2000
05:31
But when you exercise them,
91
318000
3000
05:34
any given muscle adds strength to the whole system
92
321000
2000
05:36
and that applies to your brain too.
93
323000
2000
05:39
So practicing throwing things has been shown to
94
326000
4000
05:43
stimulate the frontal and parietal lobes,
95
330000
3000
05:46
which have to do with visual acuity, 3D understanding,
96
333000
5000
05:51
and structural problem solving, so it gives a sense --
97
338000
5000
05:56
it helps develop their visualization skills and their predictive ability.
98
343000
4000
06:01
And throwing is a combination of analytical and physical skill,
99
348000
5000
06:06
so it's very good for that kind of whole-body training.
100
353000
4000
06:10
These kinds of target-based practice also
101
357000
6000
06:16
helps kids develop attention and concentration skills.
102
363000
5000
06:21
So those are great.
103
368000
2000
06:23
Number four -- deconstruct appliances.
104
370000
4000
06:27
There is a world of interesting things inside your dishwasher.
105
374000
4000
06:31
Next time you're about to throw out an appliance, don't throw it out.
106
378000
5000
06:36
Take it apart with your kid, or send him to my school
107
383000
3000
06:39
and we'll take it apart with them.
108
386000
2000
06:41
Even if you don't know what the parts are,
109
388000
2000
06:43
puzzling out what they might be for
110
390000
3000
06:46
is a really good practice for the kids
111
393000
3000
06:49
to get sort of the sense that they can take things apart,
112
396000
6000
06:55
and no matter how complex they are,
113
402000
2000
06:57
they can understand parts of them and that means that eventually,
114
404000
4000
07:01
they can understand all of them.
115
408000
2000
07:03
It's a sense of knowability, that something is knowable.
116
410000
3000
07:07
So these black boxes that we live with and take for granted
117
414000
3000
07:10
are actually complex things made by other people
118
417000
4000
07:14
and you can understand them.
119
421000
2000
07:16
Number five -- two-parter.
120
423000
4000
07:20
Break the Digital Millennium Copyright Act.
121
427000
2000
07:22
(Laughter)
122
429000
3000
07:25
There are laws beyond safety regulations
123
432000
3000
07:28
that attempt to limit how we can interact with the things
124
435000
3000
07:31
that we own -- in this case, digital media.
125
438000
2000
07:34
It's a very simple exercise -- buy a song on ITunes, write it to a CD,
126
441000
7000
07:41
then rip the CD to an MP3 and play it on your very same computer.
127
448000
3000
07:44
You've just broken a law.
128
451000
2000
07:46
Technically the RIAA can come and persecute you.
129
453000
4000
07:50
It's an important lesson for kids to understand --
130
457000
2000
07:52
that some of these laws get broken by accident
131
459000
4000
07:56
and that laws have to be interpreted.
132
463000
2000
07:58
And it's something we often talk about with the kids
133
465000
3000
08:01
when we're fooling around with things and breaking them open
134
468000
4000
08:05
and taking them apart and using them for other things --
135
472000
3000
08:08
and also when we go out and drive a car.
136
475000
5000
08:14
Driving a car is a -- is a really empowering act for a young child,
137
481000
4000
08:18
so this is the ultimate.
138
485000
2000
08:20
(Laughter)
139
487000
2000
08:22
For those of you who aren't comfortable actually breaking the law,
140
489000
4000
08:26
you can drive a car with your child.
141
493000
3000
08:29
This is -- this is a great stage for a kid.
142
496000
3000
08:32
This happens about the same time
143
499000
2000
08:34
that they get latched onto things like dinosaurs,
144
501000
3000
08:37
these big things in the outside world
145
504000
2000
08:39
that they're trying to get a grip on.
146
506000
2000
08:41
A car is a similar object, and they can get in a car and drive it.
147
508000
5000
08:46
And that's a really, like -- it gives them a handle on a world
148
513000
4000
08:50
in a way that they wouldn't -- that they don't often have access to.
149
517000
5000
08:55
So -- and it's perfectly legal.
150
522000
2000
08:57
Find a big empty lot, make sure there's nothing in it
151
524000
2000
08:59
and it's on private property, and let them drive your car.
152
526000
4000
09:03
It's very safe actually.
153
530000
2000
09:05
And it's fun for the whole family.
154
532000
2000
09:07
(Laughter)
155
534000
2000
09:09
So, let's see.
156
536000
2000
09:11
I think that's it. That's number five and a half. OK.
157
538000
3000

▲Back to top

ABOUT THE SPEAKER
Gever Tulley - Tinkerer
The founder of the Tinkering School, Gever Tulley likes to build things with kids.

Why you should listen

Gever Tulley writes the best Twitters: Just landed my paraglider in an empty field behind Santa 8arbara. ... Making amazing tshirts with a laser cutter at the maker faire in austin. ... Washing fruit, putting sheets on bunkbeds, and grinding up aluminum foil in a cheap blender ... Updating the school blog, trying to figure out how many cubic feet of air are in a 5 gallon cylinder at 200 PSI. ... Trying to figure out if the tinker kids are going to be able to get molten iron from magnetite sand ...

A software engineer, Gever Tulley is the co-founder of the Tinkering School, a weeklong camp where lucky kids get to play with their very own power tools. He's interested in helping kids learn how to build, solve problems, use new materials and hack old ones for new purposes. He's also a certified paragliding instructor.

More profile about the speaker
Gever Tulley | Speaker | TED.com