Caine's Arcade: Beautiful story about a boy and his creativity

Creative Leadership
Written By Ben Weinlick

Caine's arcade is an inspiring 10 min documentary about a 9 year old boy (Caine) and how he built a cardboard arcade in East LA.

This mini doc has much to teach us about creativity. One thing creativity experts often advise is to cultivate child-like curiosity. Cultivating child-like curiosity is about seeing things from a fresh perspective.  It's about  exploring ideas without fear, and to turn off our inner naysayer for awhile.  We can learn about this kind of fresh thinking and  exploration from Caine.  Caine's story and how it was captured also reminds me of how badly we need some innovation in our education system. We need to find ways to nurture creativity in kids before it is squeezed out of them by the time they finish high school.  As Ken Robinson, a leading creativity expert and critic of current education systems says,

“Our communities, our economies, our nations depend upon diversity… not conformity in the strict way our schools are being forced to promote… I think we underestimate our creativity, because of the way we’ve been educated. I don’t speak in criticism of teachers, but I think that we have to recognize that “this” system of education came about to meet the needs of a very different world; to meet the needs of the industrial economies of 19th and 20th centuries. The heart of the change is to have a different view of what people are capable of achieving.”

Caine's story is for sure an example of a different view of what people are capable of achieving. So glad a person like Nirvan (the film maker) noticed the boy's creativity and found a cool way to support him and let him know his ideas are awesome and worth spending time exploring.  Watch out for this kid, if he keeps receiving this kind of support to explore his ideas fearlessly, he will be a great innovator one day.

Enjoy

Ben Weinlick

Ben Weinlick is the founder of Think Jar Collective.

Currently Ben is also the Executive Director of Skills Society. Skills Society is one of largest and most innovative social service organizations in Canada. Stewarding an amazing collective of 500 employee, and a 25 million a year budget, Skills Society has a long and unique history related to social innovation and systems change around the rights and inclusion of people with intellectual disabilities. Ben and colleagues of Skills are known internationally for quality human centered services and creating tangible social innovations. Before becoming Executive Director in 2019, Ben stewarded Social Innovation Research & Development through an innovation lab he helped launch in 2015 called the Action Lab. The Action Lab focuses on systems change and innovation around some of the most wicked and entangled problems that humans are facing today. He is also the co-founder of MyCompass Planning which is on a mission to humanize social service case management systems where people served are centered in shaping their support services.

As the founder of Think Jar Collective and his expertise in disciplined innovation culture and methods, he regularly is asked by Universities, Businesses, Governments, and Non-Profits to help grow capacity to problem solve better and in more holistic ways. He offers keynotes on human centered service design thinking, social innovation labs and the tools and culture of disciplined innovation. Along the way striving to nudge positive systems change over the last 20+ years, he has had stellar mentors and colleagues that he shares credit with for accomplishments and awards.

He is deeply driven by the desire to help people, organizations and community to get better at navigating complex challenges together.

https://www.thinkjarcollective.com
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