Pocketknives are kind of drifting out of our cultural consciousness, which I think is a terrible thing. Gever Tulley More Quotes by Gever Tulley More Quotes From Gever Tulley Persistence and resilience only come from having been given the chance to work though difficult problems. Gever Tulley persistence resilience chance When we strive to remove all risk from childhood we also remove the foundations of a rational adulthood, and we eliminate the very experiences that will help kids grow up to be the empowered, creative, brave problem-solvers that they can and must be. Gever Tulley childhood growing-up kids The more opportunities we have, the more likely we are to be able to handle the unexpected. Gever Tulley unexpected able opportunity The potential for engaged learning is inversely proportionate to the knowability of the outcome. Gever Tulley engaged outcomes As individuals, and as a society, we can choose to take responsibility for ourselves. In doing so we have to accept that sometimes when things go wrong, it is just an accident. In order to change how we lay blame, we’re going to have to change our over-protective habits; children can only learn to take responsibility when given a chance to assess and mitigate risk for themselves. Gever Tulley responsibility order children Being able to jump off a swing is actually a useful and meaningful thing for a child to do... those are the tests that help us understand the limits of our body. That's a positive learning experience that we deny children on a regular basis. Gever Tulley experience learning positive children When we protect children from every possible source of danger, we also prevent them from having the kinds of experiences that develop their sense of self-reliance, their ability to assess and mitigate risk, and their sense of accomplishment. Gever Tulley ability risk accomplishment children Tinkering is a way of understanding difficult problems, of wrapping our heads around them and quantifying the unknowns. Gever Tulley problems difficult understanding way The evolution of playground equipment has been to this ever safer, less challenging, less interesting assemblies of equipment. Gever Tulley playground been evolution interesting The idea that we can make all things safe for all behaviors is in itself a dangerous and slippery slope. Gever Tulley make things dangerous safe Kids who grow up in radically different environments are always going to have different comfort levels with regard to a topic. If you don't live near a train track, it's hard to squash a penny that way, and if you live in an apartment in New York City, it may be difficult to get to drive a car. Gever Tulley drive city you car Every day, new laws are created that further hamper the ways children can engage with the world. Gever Tulley every-day day children world The news media is so quick to pick up tragic stories of imperiled children that it seems like there are more terrible events today than ever before - when in fact it's quite the opposite. It is, in all manners possible to calculate, the safest time in the history of civilization to be a kid. Gever Tulley time today history children Every child, and every person, deserves a chance to make something of themselves. Gever Tulley person something child chance I'm a contract computer scientist by trade, but I'm the founder of something called the Tinkering School. It's a summer program which aims to help kids to learn how to build the things that they think of. Gever Tulley help think summer school We put suffocation warnings on all the - on every piece of plastic film manufactured in the United States or for sale with an item in the United States. We put warnings on coffee cups to tell us that the contents may be hot. And we seem to think that any item sharper than a golf ball is too sharp for children under the age of 10. Gever Tulley coffee age hot children