It’s interesting to notice how a teacher is able to grab the attention of secondary students by making something that may be considered a toy, attractive and a little trendy. I am talking about the Rubik’s cube and how the Head of Art & Design in Tenby International School, a dedicated art teacher, managed to make my son interested enough to go and buy one of these Rubik’s cubes and set the goal of solving it as fast as possible. Apparently there are specific moves that need to be learnt to be able to get all sides of the cube in the same colour and every day he is studying the moves and trying them out to improve.
The Rubik’s cube has been around for some time and I remember when I was small, 30 odd years ago, I never figured out how to get all the sides to be the same colour, but I remember my older brother did, and I don’t think back then that we could get a piece of paper with the moves, so it was quite a defeat, which took my brother weeks, but I admired him for having the patience and persistency to figure it out by himself.
I suppose it’s a bit easier today as the right moves are easily available either directly in the package when buying the Rubik’s cube or available on the internet, but what we must not fail to recognise, even with the moves easily available, are the benefits to the brains of those people who have the patience, focus, commitment and persistency to learn the moves to solve the Rubic’s cube as fast as they can.
In today’s society of non-stop tv and entertainment and other passive interactive media, which don’t require much brain activity, a toy like the Rubic’s cube can actually be a beneficial tool that helps strengthen our cognitive skills required for problem solving, creative and critical thinking, improve memory and the ability to focus and concentrate on a task over a longer period of time.
I have never been keen on my son playing Play Station games too much and especially not the games involving shooting people and the like, because it gave the wrong message regardless of the game otherwise being harmless, so we limited his game time on purpose to force him to take up other interests such as playing guitar and sports. I am therefore thrilled that he is now interested in games that challenge his brain. I told him that there are lots of games on the Internet he could try, and to my surprise he told me that he already knew of a website that offered free brain games that he had tried. He just continues to surprise me, and I can’t help but wonder whether this is one of the impacts that Tenby’s positive approach has on my son, as he really has changed for the better since he started in TIS in early September 2009.
There has been a lot of research done on the impact of brain games, and studies show that brain games exercise many different mental abilities, including processing speed, reaction time, problem solving, attention span, verbal fluency, logical reasoning, task switching, spatial orientation, information processing, quantitative reasoning, and face-name recall. These skills are valuable at school, at work, and in everyday life, and if playing with the Rubik’s cube can be the start of gaining some if not all of these skills, it’s definitely worth the time he spends on it.
I suppose it also has something to do with the fine motor skills that movements of the hands involves when solving the Rubik’s cube, similar to juggling, which involves gross motor skills, the coordination and concentration required are proven to increase brain power, as an article in BBC recently shows. If you are interested in reading the article, it is available here Juggling increases brain power.
I must thank Tenby International School’s Head of Art & Design for bringing the Rubik’s cube into my son’s world.
