I didn't bring my son to a museum to look at screens

Summary

When I was a kid in the ’80s, one of my two favorite places on Earth was The Franklin Institute (TFI) in downtown Philadelphia. We lived a couple hours away so a visit was a rare and precious thing. I think I only visited two or three times but it left an indelible impression on me. I remember wandering in amazement through its enormous spaces getting to actually play with amazing and interesting things. I remember sweeping off a table and then filling an overhanging funnel pendulum with sand, setting it going, and watching it create unexpected patterns on the table. I remember running through the gigantic model heart with other kids. I remember the overpowering joy of being in an actual monumental marble temple of curiosity and fascination. So I was filled with anticipation a couple weeks ago when, during a family trip to the East Coast, we managed to squeeze in a visit to TFI with our six-year-old son. We parked and ran in, paid close to ninety bucks (ouch! but I love you, so take my money), and started off on the top floor with the Wondrous Space exhibit. And were met with screens. Design your own rocket! it said (or something like that). No, I thought, this isn’t designing a rocket, this is playing a lame video game on a touchscreen. Yes, there were space-related artifacts around the walls, and a spacesuit in its own large case, but you couldn’t touch any of this stuff, you couldn’t play with it, you could just look at it for a few seconds, read the placard, say “huh”, and maybe point out some interesting feature to the kiddo. But the screens were given pride of place, dead center in the dimly-lit space. And so they beckoned. My wife — a science writer who used to be the only staff writer covering space for New Scientist and before that, worked at NASA — poked at one of these with my son, added too many boosters to their launch vehicle, and were told it failed “for reasons” in a way she found totally unhelpful and pointless. She led our son gently but firmly awa...