The YouTube video called “Caine’s Arcade” tells the story of a 9-year old boy who makes his own arcade in his dad’s auto parts store out of cardboard boxes. This video is interesting from an educator’s viewpoint for several reasons.
Most strikingly, this young boy’s imagination and enthusiasm shines through the entire video. He loves to visit the arcade in his local pizza restaurant, where the games give out tickets that can be redeemed for prizes. So, he started creating his own games out of the leftover boxes at his dad’s store. He has made a basketball game, a soccer game, and even a claw game. Each of them feed out tickets that can be redeemed for prizes he’s culled from his own toy box.
He sells a pass for a four games and one for 500 games. He’s even rigged up calculators that check the numbers on the passes to make sure they’re legitimate. When someone wins, he crawls into the back of the game and feeds out tickets. So, in addition to dreaming up the games, he’s obviously smart and practical about making sure the entire system works.
Several questions come to mind when I think about Caine’s Arcade. What motivated him to put this arcade together? And, is he an unusual child, or will the same motivation work for other children on different projects?
From the video, it seems to me that the “magic” ingredients that got Caine to put his imagination into action were free time and free materials, plus a little bit of encouragement. The most important ingredient was obviously the free time. He had an entire summer to spend in his dad’s shop, with little interference, no one giving him directions, and nothing much to do. It was this free space in his life that gave him the impetus he needed to set his imagination free on the boxes cluttering the back of the shop. It’s equally clear from the video that Caine was allowed to do this project on his own. His father seems amused that he’s done it, and has done little more than suggest he can make a claw machine if he wants one. He hasn’t pushed him. He hasn’t signed him up for lessons or bought a kit with instructions. He hasn’t entered him in competitions or given him a lot of limitations. Really, he just let him run free in a sheltered space.
So, for the second question, can this experience be duplicated with other children, or is Caine somehow unusual? Caine is obviously a charming and bright young boy, but I don’t believe he is that different from every other child out there. I remember from my own childhood that my brother and sister and I did similar things when given a free space and some time. We once built an elaborate city out of pine needles while camping, and frequently put some chairs together in the living room and spent hours sitting on them and sailing around the world in our “boat.” One of the commonalities we had with Caine was free time in a sheltered space. We knew we were safe and had few limitations beyond those necessary for safety, but we also had little in the way of adult direction or anything programmed to do. In fact, our best play times usually arose from being terribly bored – and interesting thought for anyone trying to encourage imaginative play in children!
Most strikingly, this young boy’s imagination and enthusiasm shines through the entire video. He loves to visit the arcade in his local pizza restaurant, where the games give out tickets that can be redeemed for prizes. So, he started creating his own games out of the leftover boxes at his dad’s store. He has made a basketball game, a soccer game, and even a claw game. Each of them feed out tickets that can be redeemed for prizes he’s culled from his own toy box.
He sells a pass for a four games and one for 500 games. He’s even rigged up calculators that check the numbers on the passes to make sure they’re legitimate. When someone wins, he crawls into the back of the game and feeds out tickets. So, in addition to dreaming up the games, he’s obviously smart and practical about making sure the entire system works.
Several questions come to mind when I think about Caine’s Arcade. What motivated him to put this arcade together? And, is he an unusual child, or will the same motivation work for other children on different projects?
From the video, it seems to me that the “magic” ingredients that got Caine to put his imagination into action were free time and free materials, plus a little bit of encouragement. The most important ingredient was obviously the free time. He had an entire summer to spend in his dad’s shop, with little interference, no one giving him directions, and nothing much to do. It was this free space in his life that gave him the impetus he needed to set his imagination free on the boxes cluttering the back of the shop. It’s equally clear from the video that Caine was allowed to do this project on his own. His father seems amused that he’s done it, and has done little more than suggest he can make a claw machine if he wants one. He hasn’t pushed him. He hasn’t signed him up for lessons or bought a kit with instructions. He hasn’t entered him in competitions or given him a lot of limitations. Really, he just let him run free in a sheltered space.
So, for the second question, can this experience be duplicated with other children, or is Caine somehow unusual? Caine is obviously a charming and bright young boy, but I don’t believe he is that different from every other child out there. I remember from my own childhood that my brother and sister and I did similar things when given a free space and some time. We once built an elaborate city out of pine needles while camping, and frequently put some chairs together in the living room and spent hours sitting on them and sailing around the world in our “boat.” One of the commonalities we had with Caine was free time in a sheltered space. We knew we were safe and had few limitations beyond those necessary for safety, but we also had little in the way of adult direction or anything programmed to do. In fact, our best play times usually arose from being terribly bored – and interesting thought for anyone trying to encourage imaginative play in children!