Hi, I’m Joni Eareckson Tada with a critical word about technology.
Well, not too critical, but I do have an issue with it especially after I heard the other week that many elementary schools are no longer teaching cursive writing. I couldn’t believe that; so I went on line and I found a 2013 USA Today article which stated that 41 states no longer require public schools to teach cursive writing. Public schools are pretty much silent on penmanship, but they prioritize computers and keyboard skills, instead. I mean, that’s sad! Like, how will children learn to write their names? I remember in the classroom, when you had to practice your penmanship. How you sat with pen in hand and slowly wrote the alphabet, letter by letter — and how you tried hard to make a capital F not look like a capital T (cause they are rather similar, right?).
In fact, the other day, I was looking through some letters that my sister Jay K wrote me when I was first injured. She was in college at the time, but it was so sweet to see her actual handwriting. I don’t think it would have meant as much had they been a pile full of emails. I guess this is my point: Today's children are growing up in a different age; with tablets, smart phones, and touch-screen computers at their disposal on a daily basis, and it is naive to think that they will learn the same as children of the 20th century.
There are simply some aspects of technology — not all, but some — which can stifle personal creativity. Technology has changed the way people live their lives; the way they think. And it has had some effect on the way people create. If you look back in the book of Genesis, people used their hands to be creative. There’s a connection between our hands and the creative process. Oh, to see a child putting his hands around a crayon or a paintbrush… putting their fingers into clay… taking a pen and writing a poem… or writing a thank you note… grabbing hold of Lincoln Logs or Legos… digging in a sandbox… finger painting or papier-mâché or decoupage or building blocks — anything, something that connects the hands to the heart — that gets creativity going.
Some of my favorite childhood memories are when I would watch my daddy render the most beautiful oil paintings. He’d sit at his office desk and after dinner pull out his oil paints and sometimes he would beckon me up on his knee, and he would wrap his big hand around mine and together we would swirl and swish the oil paints on his big canvas. Well, I want children today to experience the same creative fun — it’s why when boys and girls visit my art studio, I always give each one a box of 24 crayons and a challenge for them to draw me something colorful and beautiful and creative.
Hey, this is National “Keep Kids Creative Week,” and this month on the Kids’ Corner page of our web site, we have a great Kids’ Competition running all through September and into October. To celebrate our ministry’s 35th anniversary, we are challenging kids to be creative — maybe draw 35 people at a Family Retreat, or draw 35 different kinds of fun wheels, like on a wheelchair, or 35 kids with disabilities — 35 of anything. Then have your children write us and tell us what they did or even take a photo of their craft. We’ll post the winner on our Kids’ Corner page in October, so visit joniandfriends.org for all the details.
Who knows? When it comes to our Kids’ Corner competition, perhaps some boys and girls will color 35 different kinds of flowers. Whatever! Let’s put young hands to the creative test. So join us; learn all the details on Kids’ Corner at joniandfriends.org.
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PO Box 3333 Agoura Hills, CA 91376