The Sun-Sentinel – Staff Writer
“My family had one when I was a kid. I’d pick it up, twist the sides around a few times, and maybe get three blue squares in a row before I’d throw it back in the toy bin in frustration. So when my 8-year-old son, Nate, asked for a Rubik’s Cube, I assumed he’d be as stymied by the puzzle as I had been. But I forgot that Nate has something I didn’t have when I was his age: YouTube. Turns out there are rules for solving the Rubik’s Cube and plenty of online tutorials where you can learn them. Not that it’s easy, though. While solving the Cube may not be the dominion of geniuses as once portrayed, understanding and mastering the formulas is tough. Nate watched the videos, cried, gave up, tried again, cried again, until a few days later … voilà, he held a perfectly unscrambled Cube in his hands. Clearly, my son had something else that I perhaps didn’t: grit. And that’s one of the biggest benefits of this plaything. The gratification isn’t immediate — kids have to pull from their reserves of persistence, determination, and resilience to be successful.”(more)