Teaching kids creative thinking
May 4th, 2008
The more I learn about creative thinking and about teaching, two subjects of great interest, the more depressing organized education in the U.S. becomes. I’m familiar with Montessori, Waldorf and various other well known private school brands, as well as public school programs here and there, but it’s all vaguely disappointing. I’m often left feeling there is no substitute for parents and extended family: they are the best hopes young minds have for learning what it means to think free. Perhaps that’s as it should be.
Two bright spots I’ve found are these two programs, aimed at giving kids exposure to creative problem solving in team environments. I’ve yet to see these things in action but I’d love to visit and maybe even help out with a local chapter.
Odyssey of the Mind - An international program that focuses on creative problem solving projects. It’s a world-wide competition with regional finals and programs.
Destination Imagination: Similiar to Odyssey of the mind, but offers 5 different tracks each with a different creative focus, from technical, to artistic.
If you know of other resources for parents who want to augment their kids exposure to creative thinking and problem solving skills, or have experience with either of the above programs, please leave a comment. I’d love to hear more.
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You should read up on John Taylor Gatto: http://www.preservenet.com/theory/Gatto.html
You’ll either be thrilled to find someone who “gets it” about the problem you describe, or utterly depressed to find out that the problem is so much deeper and more systematic than you realized.
If you’re not already interested, here’s the executive summary: Modern public education is bad at teaching creative thinking because it is *explicitly designed* to squelch creativity. And most of the people dilligently working within the system don’t know it.
Odyssey of the Mind (OM as we called it many years ago) has been around for quite a while. When I was in grade school in the late eighties my elementary school participated in the competitions. They were always a lot of fun to prepare for, even aside from gluing your hands together trying to create balsa wood structures to stand up to weights. Being a part of those teams most definitely affected me positively. The number of students that participated was not high though.
I participated in OM when I was in junior high in the mid-80s. It was a ton of fun; I also did the balsa wood bridges Ryan refers to. It was presented as something for the “Gifted and Talented” classes to do, so not something generally available to all students. Not sure what the stance is now, but I assume nothing’s changed in that regard.
I’d suggest a quick read through the last chapters of William Duggan’s “Strategic Intuition” for an history and analysis of progressive education. It’s not a primer for early learning, but does indicate a middle-way between pure rote and pure freedom approaches.
To me the current state of the education system isn’t just relegated to grade schools and high schools. The same problems that are seen at in the upper tiers of education. Many academics are “mailing in” the courses and are so caught in the ivory tower that they forgot how to prepare students for life past their exams. A great article about this was written by Warren G. Bennis and James O’Toole for the Harvard Business Review the basic premise being that the professionals who use to come back and teach after working in the “real world” are no longer welcomed into academics. It is an interesting take on how that influences the education of our college students. To a certain extent I wonder if how we are taught relates to how we work. And while I’m on my soapbox I can’t help but throw this cartoon in for describing creativity in the workplace.
Thanks for this great post, and the comments. My son will start kindergarten next year in public schools, and I am looking for supplements to his public education. I remember when I was in kindergarten, and the teacher made me re-do a project for coloring the trees purple. I’m already preparing to supplement different creativity-building activities for my son.
I’ve experienced teaching innovation to children firsthand (http://innovationinpractice.typepad.com/innovation_in_practice/2007/12/innovation-for.html), and I am very encouraged to see how successful they can be at it. The key is teach a process that they can understand and follow. Then you must motivate them to apply it diligently.
I always found the work of Edward De Bono inspiring and very interesting. Teaching Thinking, Creative Hats, CoRT etc. http://www.edwarddebono.com.
Having recently returned to the States following eight years in Iceland I can tell you that the whole “helicopter parent” thing here has got to be part of the problem.
I’m American, my son was born in Iceland and my daughter arrived in Iceland at the age of 2.
In Iceland I was stunned by the relative freedom at an early age that I saw amongst the kids there.
The incessant “good job” knee jerk response to everything kids do here is maddening. American kids live in a highly controlled bubble patrolled by their parents. This is a creativity killer.
You want to make American kids more creative. Get out of their way and let them be kids.
Cheers,
Doug
My younger sister loved Odyssey of the Mind in high school in the early 90s. (They started it about the time I graduated, IIRC.) Although, like Todd W’s school, it may have just been open to “gifted & talented” kids.
I’m trying to remember a summer school that I went to in junior high (?) that was really focused around creativity. I made my own journal and then wrote & drew in it; my sisters and I made a cardboard castle. Also, my senior year of high school I was in a really interesting after-school performance art class, which was storytelling, interpretive dance (yes, really), mask-making, etc.
It seems like a lot of the really interesting/creative programs are just for very smart kids or kids with very pushy parents, which is incredibly unfortunate. That last program was especially unusual because it included a number of kids from the “alternative” high school, who weren’t the usual super-nerds that were in most of the extra things I was involved in.
As a parent of two (and tired of the CNN-driven danger-is-everywhere mindset), I found this to be a very inspiring program:
http://tinkeringschool.com/blog/
In a nutshell, this program lets kids explore dangerous things, invent crazy machines, etc. I’m not doing it justice, but there was a great TED video on this too: http://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/view/id/202
I’ve been fortunate to attend a couple of Destination Imagination’s (DI) Global Finals as a Production Assistant years ago - amazing experience (you’ve never seen so many examples of creative, motivated teams in one place). My Mom is actually a full-time employee (and has been for more than 15 years) of Destination Imagination (DI) - if you’re really interested in finding out more about the program let me know, she can probably put you in touch with someone who can share some more history/insight into the program and perhaps even with a local affiliate that will allow you to witness first hand the creativity that takes place within the program.