On the first Friday in January
1991, Vanessa Hess sat in her seventh-grade science classroom at Stonybrook
Junior High and heard her teacher, Mrs. Maurice Marchani, announce that each
kid had to do a new project. They had to invent something. “There are only two
ways you can avoid this,” Mrs. Marchani said. “You can die, or you can move.”
As Mrs. Marchani continued, she made it clear that this was not a science-fair type
project. “I never want to see another papier-mache volcano,” she said.
Mrs.
Marchani wanted to see original inventions. There must be any number of school
across the United State where science teachers encourage students to be
creative by saying, “Maybe someday you will grow up to be a famous inventor.”
To Vanessa’s dismay, Mrs. Marchani had different advice. Why not try to become
a famous inventor right now?
In
the Indianapolis area, Maurine Marchani has made a name for herself by
inspiring her kids to become inventors. One of her students, Steve Prater, has
been featured in national magazines. Twice, he won prizes in competition for
his inventions. One invention was something called a Hand Stabilizer. A device
that enabled a friend of his with cerebral palsy to hold a pencil and write
responses on true or false or multiple-choice tests. It worked so well
patented, the Hand Stabilizer and began developing it commercially. In his
honor, the mayor of Indianapolis proclaimed August 23, 1989, Steve Prater Day.
“But
me?” Vanessa asked herself. Once, Mrs. Marchani had instructed her students to
figure out ways a to drop an egg from the school roof without the egg breakings
it landed. When the teacher, dressed in a bunny suit, tried Vanessa’s idea, the
result weren’t so great. “Mine crushed,” says Vanessa.
In
spite of her doubts, however, this hesitant inventor had her idea after only a
few weeks. In the classroom, Mrs. Marchani had said that when inventors hit
upon a great idea, they sometimes shout a loud and victorious “Ah-hah!” But
Vanessa? Her idea came as a soft “Hmmm…” It all started on the last weekend in
January, when spring-like weather visited Indianapolis. The warm sunny day
found Vanessa and her dad in the driveway, washing and waxing the family car.
The
maroon Olds gleamed as if new. But Vanessa noticed that each scratch in the
paint showed up as a white mark, the white being wax left in the scratch. “You
ought to cover these scratches,” she said. “Don’t know how to,” her father
replied. “Unless I go to an autoparts store and get some touch-up paint. And
even then, it may not match.”
“There ought to be a wax with
color in it.”
“There isn’t one.”
“Why not?”
“I don’t know.”
And she had her idea. She stored
it away inside her head and kept hoping a better one would come along. For a
while, she thought of developing something to keep apples from turning brown
after paring. But every Friday afternoon when Mrs. Marchani checked on her
students’ progress, Vanessa shrugged and didn’t say much.
As
the February due date drew near, Vanessa realized she was running out of time.
A few calls to auto-supply stores and a quick check through an auto
magazine indicated that no one else seemed to have produced a colored car wax.
So far, so good. Vanessa bought a blue Matchbox car and added blue food
coloring to some car wax. She scratched up the toy car, then waxed the thing-
and it worked!
That
Thursday night, with some encouragement from her mother, Vanessa printed up a
posterboard and readied her display. “It wasn’t real nice,” she admits, “just a
quick job.” The next day in the classroom she started uneasily at more
attractive presentations. But, Mrs. Marchani, moving from student to student,
had an eye for true ingenuity. When she poked her face over Vanessa’s shoulder,
she started at the display for a moment, taking it in. then in a level tone she
prophesied, “You are going to make money from this.”
Vanessa’s
colored car wax won first place in her classroom, and then swept the field in
competition against inventions from other classes at Stonybrook. A panel of
judges picked Vanessa’s project to represent Stonybrook in the annual contest
sponsored by Invent America!, a national
organization that works with school to encourage young people to invent. Her
display won that summer at the state level.
That
October, a newspaper article about Vanessa resulted in a phone call to the Hess
home. An auto-products company had already been developing colored car wax with
an industrial chemist-by coincidence, it was an Indianapolis firm.
The
annals of invention are strewn with better disputes between inventors claiming
the same product. But this story has a happy ending. The owners of the
auto-products company, two brothers named Dan and Don Huffman, were charmed by
Vanessa’s story and decided to ask her to appear in an “infomercial” for Magic
Shine, their colored car wax. Contracts were signed, and Vanessa and her mom
were well paid to fly to California to help make a Magic Shine promotional
movie that was later broadcast on TV all over the country.
How
did the young inventor like moviemaking? Vanessa ponders the days in Hollywood
rehearsing and shooting and taking instructions from the British director. “It
was kind a nice,” is all she says.
The
success of Vanessa Hess also belongs to her teacher. Maurine Marchani seems to
provide classroom experiences that lead to creative thinking. In fact, entering
Mrs. Marchani’s classroom is itself an experience. Visitor must find their way
past a whole zoo of floppy sculptures that dangle from the wall. A live rabbit
hops up and down the rows between the desks. A rabbit? “If you don’t pet her,”
says Mrs. Marchani, “she eats your shoelaces.”
The
science teacher has a theory that junior high school kids need more physical
attention than they admit. A kid who enters the school from a stressed-out home
may need to have a rabbit on his lap the whole period. And she also believes
that this is just the kind of place that encourage kids to risk having original
thoughts. “In a setting that’s offbeat, its OK to make a mistake,” says Mrs.
Marchani. “Kids are afraid of being foolish. If the teacher is sort of silly,
then its OK for them. Its OK to risk.”
She
also notes that the students with the highest gradepoint averages aren’t always
the best inventors. “I find that kids who do not do well on paper-and-pencil
tests do wonderful things with ideas.” Some people view kid inventions as
flukes. But, Maurine Marchani disagrees. “Nobody’s told seventh-graders they aren’t
creative yet,” she says. To her mind, when it comes to inventing, twelve is the
perfect age.
*An original story from Brainstorm! by Tom Tucker
1. Where did Vanessa Hess study?
A.
Stonybrook Junior High School
B. Lawrenceville School
C. Riverdale Country School
D. Hotchkiss School
E. Middlesex School
2. What is the first Vanessa’s idea?
A. How to drop
an egg from the school roof without the egg breakings it landed
B. Papier mache volcano
C. How to keep apples from
turning brown after paring
D.
A colored car wax
E. A hand stabilizer
3. Who is Steve Prater?
A. Founder of Hollywood
B. Vanessa’s father
C.
Founder of Hand Stabilizer
D. A guy who want advertised Vanessa’s invention
E. Vanessa’s teacher
4. When did the
mayor of Indianapolis proclaim Steve Prater’s day?
A. August 24, 1778
B.
August 23, 1989
C. August 25, 1845
D. August 12, 1665
E. February 26, 2014
5. “The science teacher has
a theory that junior high school kids need more physical attention than
they admit.” The underline word has the same meaning with…
A. Knowledge
B. Information
C. Measurement
D.
Thesis
E. Proof
