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AARP Confirms: Model making is Good for us Oldsters!


SkyKing

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Thanks for posting this. Do you have any idea when they might have interviewed me for this article? I confess I have no recollection of it. Maybe this modeling thing isn’t preserving my brain like it’s supposed to. Regards, Nick Filippone 

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13 hours ago, Nick Filippone said:

Thanks for posting this. Do you have any idea when they might have interviewed me for this article? I confess I have no recollection of it. Maybe this modeling thing isn’t preserving my brain like it’s supposed to. Regards, Nick Filippone 

🤣Well, it was originally published in 2009, so I'd say about 10 years ago!

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That rocks! I also remember hearing on the radio some years ago (1990's?)  about a study that had been done on model builders. It showed; in addition to the results mentioned in the AARP article, that kids who built models in their childhood and youth made much better grades than their non-model building friends. Model building taught problem-solving skills, patience, increased mental agility in determining alternate solutions and sharpened the intellect. It also showed that when said model building kids reached adulthood; if they were susceptible to the onset of Alzheimer's, they  had a fifty percent less chance of contracting it. If they did, it developed forty percent slower than in people who never built models. I really wish I could find out when and where that study was done and get a copy of the results.

 

Going back to Dak's question of how can we promote this hobby more to other adults and kids; maybe we can somehow spread the word and emphasize the information given in this AARP article and the study I mentioned (if it can be found.) I would think that if more and more people saw this kind of benefit to this hobby that it might dispel more effectively the impression that we are all just 'playing with our toys'.

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Over the years...and decades...whenever I can get someone to listen to me, one point I make is one that I suspect most of us never really focus on.  At least we don't in a way that non-modelers or parents of potential modelers will remember for five minutes.  And that is that modelbuilding...no matter the subject...is the greatest general education you'll ever find. 

Promotion of the modelbuilding hobby (or business) can be done in many ways and the General Education angle is just one more way.  What most people don't realize...and this is basically what I tell them...is that modelbuilding teaches without you realizing you're learning.  Some of us learn to translate foreign language captions, others wind up using portions of advanced math without knowing they're doing it, manual dexterity improves, communication skills improve, photographic skills develop, design analysis that is necessary for scratchbuilding and conversions are developed and refined, then there's color analysis, color mixing, how to make your own decals, chemistry and on and on.  Bottom line is that...if you pursue the modelbuilding hobby long enough...modelbuilding is essentially a community college degree in a capsule.

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