David Warlick points out some critical ideas here including the value of play and imagination.
My theory is that we were creative because we were one of the only societies that gave their children a childhood. We played. I couldn’t wait for school to end, so that I could go out and play and playing mostly meant pretending.
While I know David is advocating children’s need to play and explore outside of school, I think we need to provide this opportunity inside school as well. Even though we in Canada and specifically Saskatchewan have resisted the standardized testing craze and measurablele outcomes as the focal point of teaching and learning, we’re moving that way in some respects and that worries me. Play and exploration sometimes seem to contradict targets and SMART goals. I don’t have anything against setting targets but we can’t align everything to targets.
A couple of weeks ago, the edtech posse, got together to chat. No agenda, no topics, just talking about stuff we were thinking about. Rick has done this and will be doing this later as part of his IBM fellowship award. He made the comment that he wished all his students would “do this.” Just get together and talk and explore. No lesson plan, just hashing through ideas. Playing. We/I really need to get a handle on this. We need a balance of structured learning with free play both inside and outside of school. My sense is that that scale is still tipped to far away from play.
We people ask me about my job I usually tell them I have the most fun of anyone I work with. Part of my fun comes from the opportunity I have to play and explore and then try out stuff with teachers and kids. Since I’m not in the classroom everyday, I have to be respectful to teachers’ daily grind. But there are many good ones who allow their students to play. They are probably our best teachers.
This is interesting. I posted on this same subject yesterday afternoon:
http://remoteaccess.typepad.com/remote_access/2005/10/create.html
as well and I hadn’t seen David’s stuff yet!
I was also litening to an archived podcast
(http://www.anovember.com/Default.aspx?tabid=199)
by Mitchel Resnick, one of the main people who had worked on the develoment of Lego Mindstorms at MIT. He recalls traveling to Singapore (Hong Kong?) and seeing some of the amazing stuff that teachers were doing with this product. He was overwhelmed and amazed and said so to the teachers. They were very happy but said that products like this could never be part of “school.”
I think creative thinking is vital to the success of our kids in the new economy and I’m not sure many people understand that. Can it be taught?
Clarence,
Your posts always have me thinking and I did read your post yesterday as well. The one you wrote on Complex Literacies also has some key ideas that I’ve been exploring. Thanks for the comment and keep up the good reflective writing.