museum as classroom - 'our universes'

First week in the 'Our Universes' exhibit we discussed some background, common questions, and some misconceptions about Native Americans before moving into the alcove dedicated to the Anishinaabe people.  Below are some of the exhibit signs and displays for those in the class to review and finish drawings.

  

 We also discussed the  traditional roles of male and female elders in the community, men, women, and children.  After class we went to the children's play area, and these are a couple of books for supplemental reading.  The Birchbark House is a story about an Ojibwa girl (another name for Anishinaabe).  Raven is not specific to the Anishinaabe, but looks like a fun trickster tale. 

 

How Raven Stole the Sun is also a book that is mentioned in the intro of the exhibit.  When I looked for it in Amazon, I noticed they also have How Raven Stole the Moon.

words & moves

What I'm trying to get across is that these are not your typical dance & music classes.  Hermione brings some fun games to the mix and the kids enjoy every minute with her.

Just to share a few more snippets of class:

Here they are playing a version of improv freeze dance (no, they are not too old for it, as you can see) where when the music stops they have to jump on a letter.  Then she asks each of them for an adjective that begins with that sound, which she writes down on a list on the wall.  They get really excited and help each other when needed. 

 

Then they have a list of words to play with, and they take turns putting them together in sentences to create a whimsical collaborative story which they each then perform for one another.

      

 

 They also worked to come up with a short rhyming poem about themselves - realistic or fictitious - and performed it on video, dramatizing it with their bodies.  Then they got to watch each of the videos afterwards.  They loved this and were really cracking up and giving each other performance feedback.

 

They finished up with more improv, playing something kinda like musical chairs, except with scattered letters where each round, there was one less letter than the number of people, and they were eliminated one by one.  They were supposed to play fair and not 'hover'...

things to remember about learning

Education reform is still a hot topic.   More and more people are waking up to the idea that something is just not quite right.  Unfortunately, I feel that alot of folks are missing the mark.  As stated by Sir Ken Robinson in his TED talk that I shared in a past post, at this point, what we really need is not simply reform, but a revolution in education.  Like so many facets of our culture, the current model for the education system is based on institutionalization that began roughly one hundred years ago, and it is outdated.  I think if more people were aware of how institutionalized education came about, and what its true main purposes were - largely, to serve the purposes of the Industrial Revolution - then they'd think twice about the system that has come to be accepted as the norm.  John Taylor Gatto paints the picture quite clearly in his book (which you can also read online, chapter by chapter if you wish) The Underground History of American Education.

There is this "Waiting for 'Superman'" movie that came out last year - see trailer and Q&As here: http://film.waitingforsuperman.com/videos

I'll reserve full conclusions until having seen the film, but having watched the promotional videos, I'm not sure if they're really asking the right questions. 

What is 'success' for our children?!



What we really need to ask is,
What makes for a successful learning experience?  Isn't that supposed to be the point of sending our children to school?

Another amazing independent film came out that addresses some really valuable issues with the current system and the question of redefining success, and I will reiterate my recommendation to view it, one way or another, and that is Race to Nowhere - found at racetonowhere.com. I wrote about this film, which I covered as a member of the press, in a previous post.


Ten Fundamental Truths About Learning
by

William A. Reinsmith
Professor of English
Philadelphia College of Pharmacy and Science

Many of these points are at the heart of the unschooling philosophy.  I'll lay out the 10 points he makes; unfortunately the link I had originally where he expands upon these points is currently not working, but you get the gist:


"1. Learning first takes place through osmosis....
2. Authentic learning comes through trial and error....
3. Students will learn only what they have some proclivity for or interest in....
4. No one will formally learn something unless she believes she can learn it....
5. Learning cannot take place outside an appropriate context....
6. Real learning connotes use....
7. No one knows how a learner moves from imitation to intrinsic ownership, from external modeling to internalization and competence....
8. The more learning is like play, the more absorbing it will be-- unless the student has been so corrupted by institutional education that only dull serious work is equated with learning....
9. For authentic learning to happen time should occasionally be wasted, tangents pursued, side-shoots followed up....
10. Tests are a very poor indicator of whether an individual has really learned something...."


As a member of the media, I had the honor of photographing President Obama during his first year of presidency, when he gave an address on education at Wakefield High School in Arlington, VA, one of my home towns. Below, I share some of what he had to say. And I hear him, stand up, be responsible for yourself, don't be a victim of circumstance. But he is putting all of the honus on the youth, when it is the standardized institution of education being pushed from top down that is a big part of the problem. And now, over four years later, are we any closer to re-defining education in a way that inspires more kids to succeed rather than give up? What would happen if the system as a whole could really be organized in such a way to incorporate these ideas of 10 Fundamental Truths About Learning, and to recognize multiple intelligences - different learning types? What if we put power and creativity and inspiration back in the hands of the teachers and allow them to explore with their students, to discover what they are interested in and passionate about, moving away from standardized education to a more customized approach that gives kids more autonomy over what and how they are learning, and relies more on portfolio assessment than standardized testing?


"And no matter what you want to do with your life – I guarantee that you’ll need an education to do it. You want to be a doctor, or a teacher, or a police officer? You want to be a nurse or an architect, a lawyer or a member of our military? You’re going to need a good education for every single one of those careers. You can’t drop out of school and just drop into a good job. You’ve got to work for it and train for it and learn for it....

We need every single one of you to develop your talents, skills and intellect so you can help solve our most difficult problems. If you don’t do that – if you quit on school – you’re not just quitting on yourself, you’re quitting on your country.

Now I know it’s not always easy to do well in school. I know a lot of you have challenges in your lives right now that can make it hard to focus on your schoolwork....

But at the end of the day, the circumstances of your life – what you look like, where you come from, how much money you have, what you’ve got going on at home – that’s no excuse for neglecting your homework or having a bad attitude. That’s no excuse for talking back to your teacher, or cutting class, or dropping out of school. That’s no excuse for not trying. 

Where you are right now doesn’t have to determine where you’ll end up. No one’s written your destiny for you. Here in America, you write your own destiny. You make your own future. 

That’s what young people like you are doing every day, all across America."

born artists

after nature center class

(This post has been stuck in draft for TWO years!  SO much has changed since then, including the addition of the third artist child, Takoda Diin!  Publishing this as-is, with a to-be-continued... ;)

My children are born artists. It's really amazing to witness. I'm not just saying that or pushing it on them because I'm an artist, it's just totally natural to each of them in their own ways, part of the fabric of their being. I'm sharing this story as an example of what happens when you follow your kids' lead, from as early as possible, observe, see what they're into, let go of convention, and really give them time and space to go with it and explore themselves and their world. I think some of my biggest lessons as a parent have been letting go of control - you have to pick your battles, and so many are just not worth it; learning to say 'no' (I was never very good at that - sometimes it's necessary); and learning when not to say no, to say yes as much as possible.


Phoenix (my 3-yo son) has always had such an interesting spatial relationship with his world. When he was a baby, if he got in a fussy mood (which was not often, except for one period of about a month when he was cutting teeth and was inconsolable in the middle of the night), accidentally we discovered that he love to be upside down. He was fussing, crying, carrying on, and his Baba held him upside down like a bat, and he was happy. He stopped and was quiet. He loved it.

Then, he didn't crawl much; he would scoot around on his butt, backwards especially, usually with one leg out rather than on hands and knees. Once he could stand well he would climb to the highest point in the room, as often as he could. He walked a good 15 steps one day around 11 mos. when we were at the TaeKwonDo school and then wouldn't do it again for a month. He learned to walk just after his 1st birth day when my mom was visiting and she said, "C'mon Phoenix, walk! You just do this, waddle like a penguin." And he just took off after her, waddling like the little grandson penguin.

my painted boy balancing blocks at the American History Museum

He went through a phase where he was constantly a painted boy. Marker on his face, kinda like a warrior, and he always had to do his nipples and his belly button and his arms too. Or he would draw all over his chest. He had to have the Aang arrow (Avatar The Last Airbender) on his forehead for a few months straight. And when his hair was short, he had to have the arrow extend up over his head and down his back, and had to have the arrows on his hands and feet too. Attention to detail. Convention would say "No, don't let him do that. He can't go out in public like that!" Why not? Who really cares? He's a little boy that wants to decorate himself. It's not hurting anyone, including him! What would hurt him is if I made him feel bad, guilty, or like he did something wrong.

doesn't want to come down!

Then, as he's gotten older, he still loves to climb, and is quite good at it - I'm very confident in his climbing skills. He can scale a fence up 9 feet at least, and would go higher if the fence is tall enough and someone would follow him up there (because of the adults' fear, not his). Definitely no fear of heights. He does things when we're out and about that make people cringe sometimes, like "He's 3! Aren't you afraid he's going to hurt himself?!" But I just watch him calmly, knowing that he has the situation under control. He's not reckless, but brave and assured.

nakey boy wrestlin' with papa in the backyard

He love love loves to wrestle and 'fight' with his dad, and anyone else that will humor him. His dad is his favorite because he can really test his strength and go at it as hard as he wants, knowing that Daddy's Tough and he can't hurt him. He knows when to be gentle and make it a lot of show with little impact. He goes at it in total fun and is so conscious most of the time of who's on the receiving end. He's smiling, laughing, and squealing in delight. He is my peaceful warrior, usually. He most certainly has a temper which flares from time to time though. Then, look out. I'd say his 9-yo sister, unfortunately, is the most frequent recipient of that type of outburst.

He's developed an interesting relationship with objects. He shows a very natural knack for sculpture without any prodding or suggestions from me whatsoever. He just does it instinctively.

When we are at the river (any river - we're river people) he will collect and arrange sticks in a fashion somewhat reminscent of an Andy Goldsworthy installation. He might stick them in the ground in two parallel lines, making what appears to be an old abandoned ribcage of an animal beached in the mud. (If you're unfamiliar with Andy Goldsworthy, he's an amazing 'earth artist' who creates mostly ephemeral land art. If you have Netflix, his movie "Rivers and Tides" is available for instant play, here. Check him out!)

'drawing' with blocks

He will use objects including various shaped building blocks to make lines on the ground, and he likes to build very tall lego block towers just so that he can knock them down. Convention might say, "But wait, you just built it! Why would you knock it down?!"

When I started getting Play-Doh for him, his first instinctive use for it was to wrap his "guys" (the super heroes and other characters) in it. He completely covers them with the Play-Doh, bit by bit, often using his body to smush it onto them well by standing in his chair and leaning on the guy with all his weight, pressing his belly against it to make sure that it's really well stuck. And then, after a while, he'll take it off, and it can go back into the container. He also pretty quickly manages to mix most of the colors together. Convention would have him trying to make a cat or a dog or something, and of course, you mustn't mix the colors all together! God forbid!

a Batman Masterpiece who's missing at the moment :(

When I offer him paint to use, he's not really interested in painting on paper. About a year ago when he was 2 and a half was probably the first time paint was offered to him and he wanted to paint one of his brand-new Batmans. Convention would say "No! You can't paint on that! It's brand new! If you paint on him, it's not going to come off. You're going to 'ruin' him." But hey, what the heck? Who cares? He wants to enhance Batman's appearance. And does so quite well. Now the "guys" have become real works of art. Some of them look soooo cool, they have so much character, with this kind of weathered look. What he likes to do is paint them, and then wash the paint off, sometimes almost immediately after. Now, sometimes he leaves the paint on. And guess what, he uses my (gasp) expensive paints - my acrylics and nice gouache (high-quality watercolors), or the window art paint, which dries like colored translucent plastic. At first, I struggled with "Oh Phoenix, but you're wasting it!" Especially since he would slather it on and then sometimes just wash or peel it off right away. There it goes. Down the drain. But then I thought, Well, small price to pay for his fun, joy, happiness, learning, exploration, and freedom. Big deal. I'll buy more.

Now, there's Adobe. My first born. My thesis project. And my only girl.  Also a true artist.  And considering that two years has passed since I started this post, and this is where I had left off, there's so much more to tell now, so I'll have to dedicate a whole 'nother post to her, soon. To be continued...

i love art works

There is a really great art studio / school / gallery in our neighborhood called art works. $5 classes! It's in walking distance of or house! Great teachers, great folks, great vibe. Love the place.

Today we went to the fiber arts class. We often take our neighbor friends, Rebecca and her sister Stephanie. The kids learned basic weaving, on three straws. They each made something resembling a belt or headband. They are so cute. Phoenix didn't go with us today, but he loves to make pipe cleaner and yarn guys there (or direct me in making them ;) kinda regardless of what the set project is .

Ummm, did I say how much I love the place?

you never know until you're doing it

'Homeschooling' - it's just like parenting in a way.  Well, of course, it is a special subdivision of parenting, if you wind up finding yourself going this route, taking this very special road....

What I mean to say is that before you have kids, you have this idea of what parenting will be like, what your kids may be like, what you think you will do if certain situations arise, what your life will be like living with children, what 'type' of parent you will be, how you will handle issues like discipline, how you will do things differently from your own parents, and so on.... But the fact is, you just really don't know until it happens.  You have all these great ideas, maybe you have read some books, blogs, articles, talked to other friends who do or don't have children, but you really just don't know until you are right there, in the thick of it, in the gloriously messy mixing bowl of family life, figuring it out as you go along.

Without digressing too far into this tangent which could be a whole 'nother post, (and in fact, I think has been...) I will just say that I was raised in a very unconventional way, by a single father whose attitude about childrearing was expressed thus: 'Everyone thinks your whole life has to change when you have a kid, but that's not true.  There's nothing to it!  You just clothe it , feed it, give it love, and go on with your life!'  This was my attitude going into parenthood also, at age 28.  Well, I was in for a big surprise.  I did manage to sustain that perspective to a certain degree for the first couple of years, but of course, things did change.  Undeniably so.  Sooo much has changed in my life over the past 11 years of parenting.  

To return to the original point of my post, before I ever had children, I had an idea that I wanted to homeschool them, for a variety of reasons.  But in my mind, it looked very neat and compartmentalized compared to what it is now.  For one, I visualized a possible scenario in which we would be involved in some type of co-op with 4 other families, and that the kids would rotate houses, which would give each responsible parent one day on and 4 days off to work, freelance, or whatever their needs dictated.  This is part of how I envisioned I would be able to 'afford' doing this as a working artist of one sort or another.  The group of kids would all be together, each day of the week, but under the supervision and tutelage of a different parent each day.  Sounds nice.  Having lessons in various subjects, with each responsible parent getting to focus on their area of strength with the kids, complimentary studies happening....

Well, the fact is that it's difficult enough to even get a co-op scenario to gel for even one day a week, for a number of reasons.  For one, part of the reason most people homeschool is because we actually want to be with our kids all day, or most of the day, pretty much every day.  We formed and sustained a co-op with a few other families that lasted for a couple years (see previous posts) that was really fabulous, and it started off with the intention of being a swap-off situation so that each of us would have a chunk of time most weeks to do some work or whatever we needed to do, but that rarely happened, because we just enjoyed being with our children, each others' children, and each other so much that we just all stayed together most of the time, swapping off responsibility and who would host and give the kids a lesson that week.

And there are so many activities and classes offered for homeschoolers that the kids would miss out on if they were committed to being at someone's house 5 days a week.  Which leads me to why I place 'homeschooling' in quotation marks to begin with.  Homeschooling is actually a bit of a misnomer for most of us.  I tend to refer to what we do instead as 'lifeschooling' because working or 'schooling' at home is only a portion of what we do, and in fact most of our at-home 'lessons' do not really resemble school at home (again, another post).  There is also 'carschooling' (all homeschoolers know this ;), when we are going from place to place, and doing our Spanish lessons - Pimsleur approach to conversational Spanish, or singing, or listening to classical music, jazz, blues, quizzing from 5th grade Brainquest cards while at stop lights, making up stories, and so on.   That's in between our Museum class that I'm teaching, our art classes, Earth Champs meetings, writing class, Shakespeare rehearsal, and so on....  Then there are other real-world experiences like going to the bank, the grocery store, thrift store, comparing prices, budgeting, going to more museums, nature walks, historical tours, bike rides, other field trips... it's boundless really.  That's a big part of where the inspiration of the name for my businesses came from, this overall attitude that
We Can Do Anything We Want.

Reading this, school-going families may think, 'well yeah, of course, we do a lot of those things too.'  Yes, you do.  As homeschool families, we are held accountable (in most places - it depends on where you live, and varies) and called upon to show evidence of learning, thus we may come to value these real-world experiences in a different light as we begin to see the learning opportunities inherent all around us, every single day.

My original point is that homeschooling, or lifeschooling, like parenting, is a beautiful, unfolding, sometimes chaotic, sometimes harmonious, ever-changing process with twists and turns, revelations, successes and failures.... And just when you think you have it all figured out, that you have found 'a way,' life will throw you a curve ball just to keep things interesting, and you have to try again, change it up, find a new way.  Some things change, some things stay the same.  There is so much more to education than schooling.   

Until next time....

'Education is not the filling of a pail, but the lighting of a fire.'
-Yates

giving thanks for networks

Jan 5:  I give thanks for my awesome homeschool tribe.  We went to the Shenandoah Valley Discovery Museum in Winchester for the day with some of our posse, and everyone had such a great time.  If you've never been there, well worth the trip.  Similar to the way DC Children's Museum was set up for those of you who grew up in the area, except way smaller.  Totally awesome.  We wrapped it up at a yummy Thai restaurant there on the pedestrian mall a few doors down, and then stopped by a coffee shop a couple more doors down to refuel for the ride home while the kids ran around outside a bit longer.



These mommas and their kids (shout out to Kristen, Melanie, and Stephanie) are such a vibrant part of our network, and I'm so thankful for our freedom to explore and learn in a natural & fun way. 

Jan 6:  I give thanks for Facebook.  Yes, it's true.  Such a great centralized wealth of information, a great virtual community, a great voice for those who want to share their thoughts with any segment of 'their' public, whether mundane or profound, a great place to network, and of course, a great place to reconnect.

What are you thankful for?

Race To Nowhere: A Must-See Film For Parents, Educators, Students, Administrators, And Anyone Who Cares About The Future Of This Country

As children start a new school year, here's some food for thought. If you are a school-going friend, please don't take this as an affront, but a call to action. Here in the Northern Virginia area, many families are blessed to have their children attending pretty decent schools, even good, and in some cases, even great. But just stop to think about what it is that makes a school great. Ask questions. And see this film.



On a Saturday last winter, I had the pleasure of attending a screening of the film, “Race to Nowhere” by parent and first-time film maker Vicki Abeles, as part of the Alexandria Film Festival. I wrote a review for AlexandriaNews.org, the majority of which comprises this blog post that for some reason is just now being published. (Um, I birthed a baby on March 7. ;) Race to Nowhere was one of the winners of the festival, receiving the Audience Award. This is one of the most moving, timely and crucial films I have seen. Abeles said in the Letter From the Director, on the film's site: “Race to Nowhere was inspired by a series of wake-up calls that made me look closely at the relentless pressure to perform that children face today. I saw the strain in my children as they navigated days filled with school, homework, tutoring and extracurricular activities. But it wasn’t until the crisis of my 12-year-old daughter being diagnosed with a stress induced illness that I was determined to do something.” And do something she did.

This film is a great addition to the dialogue in an issue that is a hot topic right now – education reform. Race to Nowhere provides a healthy antidote to many of the current voices on the subject which seem to be missing the point by blaming teachers and still focusing on how to raise test scores. In an era that is still reeling from the effects of No Child Left Behind, what the system really needs is a complete overhaul in not only how we measure success, but the mere definition of the word, as it relates to education and to life. The film echoes my sentiment that what we really need to ask is this – what makes for a successful learning experience? What cultivates a successful – and fulfilled, and happy – human being?  Shouldn’t that be the point of educating our loved ones?

One of the experts in the film states, “I’m afraid our children are going to sue us for stealing their childhoods.” Many children are growing up in a world where every minute of every day is scheduled, and there is little to no down time, time to be bored, time to just be a kid and play. Abeles own daughter Jamey says at one point in the film, “I can’t remember the last time I had a chance to go in the back yard and just run around.”

Countless youth are aware that something is just not right with this formula of get the best grade – participate in as many extracurriculars as possible – so you can get into a good college – so you can get a good job – and make a lot of money. It doesn’t sound so bad, really, as a premise, but at what cost? One of the girls in the film points out that not only do you have to get good grades, but you have to be involved in the arts and play sports, join clubs, and find something unique about yourself so that you stand out when applying for colleges; and that among all of that, you have to figure out who you are, because if you don’t, you’ll lose yourself. At the end of the day, what matters more – how much money you have, or whether you’re truly happy and fulfilled? Abeles herself admits in the film, “Sometimes, parents just need to step back and say, ‘You know what, you’re doing a really good job.’”

Abeles received inspiration for the title of the film when interviewing one of the high school students who commented that students “get caught up in a race to nowhere”. Many students either get caught up in the drive to succeed, and sacrifice everything they can, including their mental, emotional, and physical health, or they tune out, and just decide they don’t care. It’s a Either road often leads to trouble. It’s a widely-known fact, also highlighted in the film, that among the students who do appear to be succeeding, cheating runs rampant. I remember this from my own high school days, 20 years ago.

The film shows that pressure comes from both ends of the spectrum – from highly successful parents who worry that their children won’t be as successful as they are, perhaps higher income parents who want to be able to brag to others about all of the things their child is accomplishing, and from lower-income parents who perhaps never even graduated high school, or never attended college, who not only want better for their children, but demand that the only possible route to college for their kids is to get the best grades so they can get scholarships to attend school. “The pressure comes from the colleges, from the parents, from the government, but it has to stop.”

In the film, the young people who were interviewed were experiencing such pressure to perform and “succeed” that they experienced stress-induced health problems and depression, engaged in food and sleep deprivation so they could stay up well into the night, sometimes all night, to complete their work, used pharmaceuticals to enhance their performance, and in some cases, found themselves institutionalized or hospitalized for eating disorders or mental breakdowns. Parents expressed that the little family time they had to share in the evenings were often filled with conflict and strife, both with their children and their spouses, over homework and grades. And then there is the very serious increasing epidemic of teen suicide. The film was dedicated to a beautiful 13-year-old girl from Abeles’ community (not involved in the movie) who had always been a straight-A student and very successful at all of her endeavors – and several months into the making of the film, committed suicide one weekend, because she was devastated after receiving an F on a math test.

The system at large does not allow for innovation.  There is so much pressure on everyone to “succeed”, including the teachers, that they are forced to “teach to the test” because that is the main method by which everyone’s success is being measured.  Creativity and individuality, in teachers and students, are sacrificed to protocol. One of the important points of the film is that these rote methods of learning are not promoting problem-solving, not producing critical thinkers. “Our students are pressured to perform; they’re not necessarily pressured to learn conceptually and deeply.” “And what is that going to mean, when we have a whole population of dentists and doctors who have been trained from the script?” One of the teachers in the film, who winds up making the very difficult decision to resign from her job out of frustration with the system, says tearfully, “Things that actually get our students to think are pushed aside.” Matt Goldman, Founder and CEO of the Blue Man Group, and Co-Founder of the Blue School in Manhattan, says, “These kids come to the table with this creativity and this love of learning…. Let’s just not take it out of them!”

The problem is not going to be solved by more rigorous testing, by more drilling of facts that lead to high test scores, by firing teachers in schools that fail to “perform”, by cutting funding in “under-performing” schools, by making teachers feel the pressure of losing their jobs if their students don’t test well, by giving bonuses to those who out-perform others.  One of the main messages of the film comes through loud and clear: what we need is a re-definition of success.

As a side note: unfortunately, Obama’s Race to the Top (not directly mentioned in the film), while well-intentioned, is only another piece of the puzzle that is serving to perpetuate the problem. The state of Virginia chose not to participate.

If this is an issue that concerns you, please try to attend, or even host, a screening of this film. Register on the Race to Nowhere website to receive their action points and find out what else you can do, in your life and in your community, to be a part of this movement. There you can also see when & where the next screenings of this film are playing.

Chime in! I'd love to hear your thoughts. Please keep the conversation respectful.

an awesome illustration of changing education paradigms

Absolutely one of the most amazing things I've ever seen.  This is a combo hand/computer animation made from a compilation of the main points made by Sir Ken Robinson in another recent talk about Changing Education Paradigms.  This video really does a great job of illustrating the history and crux of the issue.  I could watch this over and over (and in fact have already seen it about 7 or 8 times and see something new each time).  It's incredible that this 11-minute video accompanies the audio of spliced-together main ideas from a 55-minute talk, and it's pretty darn seamless.  You would never guess that this wasn't one from one continuous delivery, other than the fact that it does end rather abruptly.  Definitely leaves me wanting for more.  Enjoy!



What do you think?

inspiring creativity in learning and life

Several months ago, we went to this awesome place out in Winchester, VA, called the Shenandoah Valley Discovery Museum.  Even though we've only been there once, it's officially one of our favorite places in the world.  We plan to visit there again soon, so I'll do a full post later, with pictures, about why the place is so awesome and all the things there are to do there.  On the wall, they have this statement, nice and big, entitled 'Creativity Killers', and I requested a copy to bring home because I loved it so much, and it is a good reminder for me from time to time, especially when I feel like I'm being too controlling about what, how, and when my kids learn and do things.  I'm not sure who wrote it, or I'd give that specific person credit. 

If you want to inspire creativity in learning and life, here are some great reminders of things not to do:

CREATIVITY KILLERS

Surveillance:  hovering over kids, making them feel that they’re constantly being watched while they’re working.  When a child is under constant observation, the risk-taking, creative urge goes underground and hides.

Evaluation:  making kids worry about how others judge what they’re doing.  Kids should be concerned primarily with how satisfied they are with their accomplishments, rather than focusing on how they are being evaluated or graded, or what their peers will think. 

Rewards:  excessive use of prizes, such as gold stars, money, or toys.  If overused, rewards deprive a child of the intrinsic pleasure of creative activity.

Competition:  putting kids in a desperate win-lose situation, where only one person can come out on top.  A child should be allowed to progress at his own rate.  (There can, however, be healthy competition that fosters team or group spirit.)

Over-control:  telling kids exactly how to do things--their schoolwork, their chores, even their play.  Parents and teachers often confuse this micromanagement with their duty to instruct.  This leaves children feeling that any originality is a mistake and any exploration a waste of time.

Restricting choice:  telling children which activities they should engage in instead of letting them follow where their curiosity and passion lead.  Better to let a child choose what is of interest, and support that inclination.

Pressure:  establishing grandiose expectations for a child’s performance.  For example, those “hot-house” training regimes that force toddlers to learn the alphabet or math before they have any real interest can easily backfire and end up instilling an aversion for the subject being taught.

Time pressure:  restricting time for a child to explore a particular activity is a sure killer of intrinsic motivation.  Children enter the ultimate state of creativity called flow more naturally than adults.  This is a period in which total absorption can engender peak pleasure and creativity.  In flow, time does not matter; there is only the timeless moment at hand.  It is a state that is more comfortable for children than adults, who are more conscious of the passage of time.

Marcellita exploring watercolors.

Adobe laying out her composition.

Skyler exploring colors and strokes.

Which of these do you find especially challenging at times, or in what specific situations?  Have you had any specific experiences that illustrate for you the points listed above?