As a teacher, some of the most important lessons I teach occur from "teachable moments".  These are moments that randomly  occur where a large portion of a class is ready to learn something.  This is rarely in a lesson plan, and may not even be in the curriculum I am suppose to teach.  These are the lessons that I remember from my childhood and my students will remember in the future.

      As a parent, off for the summer with my kids,  my job is to provide opportunities for my kids to create their own moments.  It is the time for a certain amount of freedom.  Our swimming pool does not have a diving board, so the kids regularly create their own.  This has provided hours of play that has outlasted an actual diving board. 

     Unstructured, thought not unsupervised, play is disappearing from our children's life.  It is this creativeness that has helped make America.