Family Roundup: Raising the Next Steve Jobs

The world marked last week’s death of Apple’s Steve Jobs with sadness and gratitude for all the amazing technology he help create that we use today. This week two Eastside teachers, who are also parents, offer some tips on how we can enhance our child’s creativity, communication, team work and problem solving skills that Jobs personified in his endeavors in technology and film making.

Jeff Mason, a teacher at , said that skills in problem solving, creativity, communication and team building are is developing in his technology students. For 18 years, Mason has taught various science and technology courses at Newport High School. He was one of the first ten instructors worldwide to be qualified as a Cisco Certified Instructor Trainer and today, Newport is the only high school academy in the nation to teach all levels of Cisco Networking including CCNA, CCNP and CCSP courses.

Creative adults with intelligence and problem-solving skills start out as creative kids, he said.

“I see students who have taken high levels of math and science but when I ask them to take a concept and apply it, they lack the creativity to do that,” he said.

“[F]rom the youngest possible age encourage kids to be creative,” Mason said.

Mason recalls his parents allowing him as a child to find and fix broken items from the local junkyard.

He says there is great value in allowing kids to take stuff apart and see how it works, and watching their parents do the same.

He had his three year old recently observing him changing his oil, telling him what he was doing as he did it, and his kids also know how to change batteries.

Mason said students in his class work on communication and technology skills and he encourages them to think outside the box by giving them unexpected problems to solve. Communication is a key skill.

“To succeed in technology you have to have the ability to communicate and work in a group,” he said.

To promote creative problem solving and real-life job skills Mason has partnered with the Bellevue Breakfast Rotary Club to have Newport Cisco students design and build computer labs all over the world. The service projects are student-led and Mason says, “they have eight hours to walk into an empty room and connect it to the Internet.”  

Mason’s students work toward earning an industry certification in networking that can translate to an entry level job in technology he says that pays up to $55,000 a year. The program is open to any high school age student, including those going to private school or being homeschooled, who live within the boundaries of the Washington Network for Innovative Careers Consortium (WaNIC) school district members including , , Mercer Island, Northshore, Riverview and Snoqualmie.

Parents and students can learn more about the program by going to the Newport Networking Academy’s website, visiting the Bellevue School District’s Career and Technology education website and by visiting the WaNIC website.

Mason says that the 104 openings for nine to 12th graders for next year’s program will be accepted through Feb. 1, 2012, on a first come, first serve and that understandably “they fill up fast.”

Parents don't need to wait until high school to foster the traits that can lead them to successful and innovative careers.

Meagan Buckmaster Ross, who teaches art at the  in Redmond, said that art instruction can be started with children as young as 12 months old, which is a time that she says, development of the five sense is very important. 

“Pools of split peas or other materials such as rice or flax seed to pour into different containers to hear the different sounds, feel the bumpy or smooth texture, measure out into different bowls and cups," she said.  "This is generating visual, listening skills, math skills, and sense of touch.”

Buckmaster Ross said her classes Orange Blossom Society support the development of creativity and problem solving skills in an environment that allows children to experiment and explore in class.

"Research has shown that experiences with new kinds of activity or stimulation can generate growth in the brain within only a few hours after the experiences begin,”  she said.

Buckmaster Ross gives her students open-ended choices and encourages them to explore the materials themselves.

“A child is given a paint brush, a potato masher, and a car all of which are used to paint with. He or she is experimenting and exploring new ways to paint with all materials," she said. "Given a chance to see which one may work the best, what texture do they make, how does it look on paper with blue and yellow paint, or red and yellow paint. Or they just want to paint their feet or hands and see what it may make. This is the choice at a sensory class, materials out that they can use the way they want to make a masterpiece their way"

"It helps with confidence, creativity, and problem solving skills,” she said.

These are tools that are available to anyone.

“You can use simple household items to have your own sensory bin. Flour, cornmeal, rice, homemade salt dough or play dough played with in a large bowl or wash basin," she said.

Buckmaster Ross said in her own home, she offered her children art materials and wasn't afraid to make a mess at home. They also went on "adventures" -- day trips with no planned itinerary that explored the area.

Her 16-year-old daughter recently asked when they were going to go on another adventure.

She said many parents like enrolling their children in classes at the Orange Blossom Society because kids can make a big mess, and the parent doesn’t have to clean it up. Parents and kids also get to connect and build social skills by meeting other kids.

Developing creativity, social skills and curiosity doesn't guarantee that a kid will become the next Steve Jobs, but these are skills that will serve a child throughout his or her life no matter what they do.