Newsweek article: The Creativity Crisis (project-based learning)

[Kathleen in VA]

I read this article while sitting at the dentist's office Wednesday afternoon. It is long - sorry - but I found it absolutely fascinating. The article is about how creativity in the US is waning and that project-based learning is a great tool to reignite it. It also goes into detail about what creativity is and how to actually teach children to be creative. Does anyone here do project-based learning - I'd love to hear about it.

 

http://www.newsweek.com/2010/07/10/the-creativity-crisis.html

[Farrar]

That was one of the best things I read about education in the last year. I blogged about it at the time with my thoughts. And I think there were some threads about here too...

 

My takeaway wasn't so much about project based learning. We do some - mostly through our two co-ops and then we approach history and science as sort of project based. The thing I took from the article was mostly about embodying contradictions - being structured enough to help kids feel safe (and, from a homeschool point of view, I would add to learn basic skills) - yet also allowing for chaos and even encouraging it on some level.

[Nan in Mass]

Kathleen, if you go over to the high school board, there have been some good discussions pertaining to this recently. Look for posts by KarenAnn and Correlano (may have mangled the spelling a bit). They both are doing quite a lot of project-based learning. It becomes scarier as your children get older. I have done a bit of it, too, but when I have done it, I haven't done it "properly"- I haven't decided what I wanted my children to learn, then worked out a project which taught those things, then done the project, then gone over what lessons they should have learned from it to make sure they did. Instead, mine have chosen a project and done it and whatever they learned from it is whatever they learned from it. I am always left with the feeling that the project could have been done better, but we don't usually have the energy to do so. Learning opportunities were lost, but not all the creativity development was lost. I have found that my children are very resistant to specifications when it comes to projects, so project-based learning is not a success here unless they themselves design the project. And redesign it. And change the specifications. And abandon it when it becomes difficult or boring or they have gotten whatever it was they wanted to get out of it. For us, a better approach has been to minimalize schoolwork to try to leave them time to do their own projects and then protect that time from things like video games by calling it school. The result has been children who weren't super-creative but weren't super uncreative, either.

-Nan

 

ETA - I read the article, too, and panicked a bit over the whole creativity thing. That same week, my son got bored and built a crossbow out of a ruler, some clothespins, string, and plastic spoons. That returned me to my original thinking on creativity - that necessity is the mother of invention and that a certain amount of bordom and restrictions encourage creativity. The most creative people I know are the ones that grew up having their basic needs met but having some serious handicaps to overcome. When you require a project, you are creating a necessity and when you give specifications, you are creating handicaps. Since I had no luck doing either of those things at home (at least with resigned if not a moderately happy atmousphere), I gave up trying to contrive necessity and decided just to let them deal with the natural limitations of our lives. Those aren't many, given that we live in a nice place and have the resources to travel, etc.

Edited November 5, 2010 by Nan in Mass

[Carol in Cal.]

That article was great.

 

I think that my takeaway was more about having discussions and creating an environment of collegial questioning and speculation.

 

I remember that growing up I always felt like invention or artistic successes fell on you from the sky--you were either talented or not, and had very little to contribute. As an adult, I realized to my surprise that you can learn to create, both technically and artistically. Asking questions, talking about many possible solutions to the same problem, wondering about what if's, trying new techniques, having fun with new information--we have not done these things as much as we should have. I have to remember that, going forward.

[Gratia271]

That article was great.

 

I think that my takeaway was more about having discussions and creating an environment of collegial questioning and speculation.

 

I remember that growing up I always felt like invention or artistic successes fell on you from the sky--you were either talented or not, and had very little to contribute. As an adult, I realized to my surprise that you can learn to create, both technically and artistically. Asking questions, talking about many possible solutions to the same problem, wondering about what if's, trying new techniques, having fun with new information--we have not done these things as much as we should have. I have to remember that, going forward.

 

:iagree:

 

Excellent article! Thanks for posting it. I cannot speak to project-based learning, but I know that two of my children naturally possess this creative capacity. Similar to what Carol stated, it eluded me until adulthood partly because of the manner in which I was educated. As Carol stated, there are numerous ways in which we can promote this at home across all disciplines; however, it doesn't seem to fit the western education paradigm well.

[Jen in PA]

Thanks for sharing this!

[Tabrett]

I haven't read all the article, but one thing that struck me was the science experiment:

 

Pucker recently toured a number of such schools in Shanghai and Beijing. He was amazed by a boy who, for a class science project, rigged a tracking device for his moped with parts from a cell phone. When faculty of a major Chinese university asked Plucker to identify trends in American education, he described our focus on standardized curriculum, rote memorization, and nationalized testing. “After my answer was translated, they just started laughing out loud,†Plucker says. “They said, ‘You’re racing toward our old model. But we’re racing toward your model, as fast as we can.’ â€

 

All the science experiment that my dc have had to do in public school were all about following the scientific model of stating an hypothesis....

 

The experiments were never about creating something. I've never seen a school ask dc to truly "create and/or design" something. It is all about following the procedure. As long as the procedure is followed you get good grade.

 

It is hard to "grade" creativity. And you defiantly can't "test" creativity on a standardized test, so.....out goes creativity. It is not testable!:glare:

[Gratia271]

All the science experiment that my dc have had to do in public school were all about following the scientific model of stating an hypothesis....

 

The experiments were never about creating something. I've never seen a school ask dc to truly "create and/or design" something. It is all about following the procedure. As long as the procedure is followed you get good grade.

 

It is hard to "grade" creativity. And you defiantly can't "test" creativity on a standardized test, so.....out goes creativity. It is not testable!:glare:

 

This explains why my brilliant DH was a "lousy" student. I thank God that my son doesn't have to be subjected to this, and I am grateful DH was able to "tune out" most of his education and instead pursue his own. Maybe somewhere in the remote past western education promoted creative capacity or at least did not endeavor to stamp it out!

[justamouse]

I haven't read all the article, but one thing that struck me was the science experiment:

 

Pucker recently toured a number of such schools in Shanghai and Beijing. He was amazed by a boy who, for a class science project, rigged a tracking device for his moped with parts from a cell phone. When faculty of a major Chinese university asked Plucker to identify trends in American education, he described our focus on standardized curriculum, rote memorization, and nationalized testing. “After my answer was translated, they just started laughing out loud,” Plucker says. “They said, ‘You’re racing toward our old model. But we’re racing toward your model, as fast as we can.’ ”

 

All the science experiment that my dc have had to do in public school were all about following the scientific model of stating an hypothesis....

 

The experiments were never about creating something. I've never seen a school ask dc to truly "create and/or design" something. It is all about following the procedure. As long as the procedure is followed you get good grade.

 

It is hard to "grade" creativity. And you defiantly can't "test" creativity on a standardized test, so.....out goes creativity. It is not testable!:glare:

 

:iagree::iagree:

 

And the part you highlighted was the paragraph that struck me the most, too. I find it utterly remarkable, and yet, reading Gladwells work, I knew the Asian school system was changing toward our more creative system--what we need is a balance of both.

 

Here's the thing though, to BE creative, you need the tools. You can be mathematically creative and if you are, I bet you have the times tables memorized. So there's a balance. To see which way your child bends and give him a solid foundation to express their creativity, yet no so much that they lose it or you squelch it.

 

Parenting is flipping hard.

[Julie in Austin]

I found this fascinating.

 

However, as is the habit of Americans, it seems that we are looking for a shortcut: they want to offer "creativity classes" to increase creativity. Nevermind that there were not any creativity classes in the past, when kids did drill and kill and were more creative.

 

It seems to me that the previous generation of more creative kids did boring old rigorous school + lots of free time + lots of reading and the end result was creativity. That's the model that we should shoot for: get them away from the TV, give them facts to think with, and stop scheduling them to death.

[Nan in Mass]

But when you design an experiment that proves a hypothesis, you are being creative. And when you think up the next hypothesis you would like to try to prove, you are being creative. When you figure out how to mathematically prove something or solve a problem, you are being creative.

 

My oldest, in public school, took engineering design classes in which he was required to design things. They were taught by the shop teacher. He also designed when he took sewing. We were sad when the school opted to get rid of the home ec and shop classes so they could put more money towards art and music. It isn't that I don't think art and music is important - I do. I just think that home ec and shop classes also teach creativity, if they are well done, and that for some students, that sort of creative medium is going to work better than art or music.

 

-Nan

[Plink]

I have done a bit of it, too, but when I have done it, I haven't done it "properly"- I haven't decided what I wanted my children to learn, then worked out a project which taught those things, then done the project, then gone over what lessons they should have learned from it to make sure they did. Instead, mine have chosen a project and done it and whatever they learned from it is whatever they learned from it. I am always left with the feeling that the project could have been done better

 

Not to be snarky, but I kinda' think that this is the problem. Teaching creativity is the complete opposite of fostering creativity. (Please don't take it personally - I'm not intending to be cruel)

ETA: You are probably "doing it right" by providing your kids with opportunities, but not giving yourself enough credit.

 

We need to be brave enough to allow our kids to fail. If they say that they want to build a canoe, we need to let them. Even if it is the ugliest, most un-seaworthy contraption ever created. ~ Even if they abandon it halfway through. ~ Even if we know 10 ways to do it better. We can't come to their rescue and help them to do it "right." They need to explore all of the ways to get it wrong.

 

My son has decided that he wants to become a popcorn salesman. He has asked his grandparents to buy him a popcorn machine for christmas. He has looked in the sales flyers to find out how much the kernels are going to cost him. He has decided that the best place to sell this popcorn. He has asked friends to help. He is 5. He will probably abandon this right after he gets his machine. Who cares? He is learning. I could tell him how to do this successfully, buy the supplies for him, and tell him how much to charge, how to package it, etc. BUT to me the issue isn't really whether it is successful, it is that this is his own project - created by him, and fully explored by him until his interest wanders somewhere else.

 

Attempting to teach creativity is futile - it isn't something you can tell another person how to do. Instead, watch what your kids are passionate about and allow them to follow their dreams; even if they do it wrong.

Edited November 5, 2010 by LibertyH

[Laurie4b]

Some random thoughts:

 

My father ( mid-70's) has been a mentor at his college fraternity for many years. He is lamenting more and more the differences in problem-solving ability (which is a form of creativity) as the years have gone by. His thought is that kids' lives are structured for them to such an extent that they never have to be creative/responsible. He gives as an example baseball. When he was a kid, to play baseball, they had to make the diamond, choose teams which incorporated a range of ages (else they couldn't play), teach the younger kids how to do things, distribute the equipment they did have to best advantage , referee... He goes on about how different it is today: mom drives kids to field fully outfitted with equipment, coach teaches, refs, divides teams, at games, coach chooses positions, tells them when to run, ref makes calls, parents clap. All that's left for kids to do is the specific skills of the game itself.

 

I used to feel guilty when ds 18 was in 1st grade and we spent about 1-2 hours in school and he spent the rest of the time with his Playmobils, etc. Later, when he began to write, I saw the creativity that had developed in his Playmobil days coming through in his writing. We do our kids a great favor by giving them lots of free, unstructured time.

 

Homeschoolers can get caught between two extremes if we're not careful: a very child-centered model in which mom essentially caters to the child and the world is organized (by mom) around his or her preferences (learning style, whatever). This stifles creativity because there never arises that "necessity" which is the mother of invention. On the other hand, we homeschoolers can be very oriented to a schedule, syllabus, etc. so that the learning really is "school at home" and our kids don't have time to create (unless we cram in still another class for them!)

 

As my kids got older, one of the best things they do is Odyssey of the Mind. This is essentially a creative problem-solving competition in which a team of 7 or fewer kids has to work out a drama that incorporates (typically) an engineering problem or two, art work for the scenery, creative writing for the drama, sometimes music, and a ton of team work (including engineering types working well with drama types!) No outside assistance is allowed, so parents have to sit on their hands and tape their mouths shut and let the kids figure out their own way. It is GREAT! They meet weekly (or sometimes more) for abuot 8 months before the competition and in addition to working on the main presentation, they practice spontaneous problems involving either verbal creativity, hands on creativity, or both.

 

I agree with the pp who said that memorization, etc. is the foundation for creativity. We give the kids the classical stuff, but also give them the time, space, & opportunity to "do their own thing."

[Carol in Cal.]

Some random thoughts:

 

My father ( mid-70's) has been a mentor at his college fraternity for many years. He is lamenting more and more the differences in problem-solving ability (which is a form of creativity) as the years have gone by. His thought is that kids' lives are structured for them to such an extent that they never have to be creative/responsible.

 

 

We do our kids a great favor by giving them lots of free, unstructured time.

 

 

 

I agree entirely.

One of my main motivations for homeschooling is being able to convey a lot of information and learning but also to have free, unstructured time. It is also crucial to avoid allowing that time to be filled up with computer games, wii, television, and other more or less passive input. It has to be brain time and body time--active engagement is a requirement.

Edited November 6, 2010 by Carol in Cal.

[Nan in Mass]

Can you explain? I don't understand what you mean. : ) I promise not to be insulted. I would be grateful for any insight anyone can offer as I struggle to find the right balance between structured and unstructured learning for my son.

 

I have no idea whether creativity can be taught or not. It isn't something I have had to worry about much. Mostly, I am fighting tooth and nail to try to rein in my children's... ahem... creativity and get them to do something in a semi-standard way. Or I am trying to get them to apply some creativity to an activity that in their estimation is not worthy of their time and energy. Sigh. And I lie awake at night worrying that their latest sceme is going to kill them if they fail. The joys of older teens/early twenties. I tend to associate creativity with intelligence and assume that if one is intelligent, one is naturally going to be creative, and if one isn't obviously so, then it is because one has learned not to use one's creativity or one hasn't found an area interesting enough to be worth expending creative energy on. I think by "teaching creativity" most people mean "teaching skills which come in handy when one is trying to apply one's creativity" or they mean "giving one an opportunity to use one's creativity" or they mean "creating a fake necessity that forces one to be creative". I think. I don't know. As I said, I have thought about project based learning a whole ton but I haven't thought about creativity as much. Every time something reminds me that I ought to be teaching creativity, before I can get around to doing so, my children do something creative and I decide that perhaps I needn't bother. The few times I have actually suggested a project that would be considered creative in a more conventional sense (like suggesting they make a puppet show to illustrate something or instead of a book report), they totally baulk. They don't want me requiring any sort of creativity out of them other than the problem-solving sort. They want me to teach them as little as possible in the most efficient way possible and leave them plenty of time to do their own projects. They don't want me to "ruin" anything fun like puppets by making them a requirement or mixing them with school work.

 

-Nan

Edited November 5, 2010 by Nan in Mass

[MSNative]

Fantastic article. Reminds me of a friend who would ask her son "what is this?" He would answer "a spoon." Then she'd say "yes, but what else could it be?" Brilliant family. The kid's teachers did NOT appreciate his creativity at all! sigh.

 

One curriculum I've enjoyed that helps foster these kinds of discussions is Science:The Search by David Quine (Cornerstone curriculum) Haven't tried Making Math Meaningful, but heard good things about it, too.

 

I also think FLL robotics is great for this (but, I'm a little biased on that front.) ;)

[jld]

Kathleen, this article has to be making one of the best cases yet for unschooling! Thanks so much for sharing it!:)

[Kathleen in VA]

Hi all, thanks for much for all the very interesting and informative replies. Nan, I will check out the High School board when I get a free chunk of time later. I just wanted to thank you all for your insights and comments.

 

One of the things I got from the article is that creativity is not just right-brained or divergent thinking. It also requires convergent thinking, which I translated to mean synthesizing ideas and focusing on a single solution.

 

I liked this quote:

 

Creativity isn’t about freedom from concrete facts. Rather, fact-finding and deep research are vital stages in the creative process. Scholars argue that current curriculum standards can still be met, if taught in a different way.

 

I kind of saw this as first giving the students a body of knowledge from which to work (grammar stage) and then letting them loose with using that knowledge to solve problems (logic and rhetoric stages).

 

It made me think of the way detectives like Sherlock Holmes solve mysteries. First they find out what they know, then they think of all possible suspects and scenarios, and then they zero in on the prime suspect. This is kind of what I tell my kids when they are having trouble with a math problem - figure out what you do know first, then think about what you're trying to find out and then think of how to get from one to the other.

 

OK, ladies, tell me if this a lame idea. We already have problems here at our house. Things like no money to buy thoughtful Christmas presents for our relatives, a need to feed 6 people on a tight budget, a way to make a 1000 sf house work for 6 people (been working on that for a LONG time, lol), and many, many more. Would it be project-based learning to turn one of these problems into a project for school - I mean, get my kids to find solutions to these problems using the divergent/convergent thinking process mentioned in the article? I'm just thinking, why make up some hypothetical problem or some real problem that has a solution that I really don't need right now, when I have plenty of real-life problems needing solutions already.

 

Again, I've really loved reading all your thoughts. There are so many really intelligent ladies on this forum. I'm gleaning as fast as I can.:)

[jld]

Sounds like a great idea to me, Kathleen. Sounds really, really . . . creative!:)

[Perry]

I found this fascinating.

 

However, as is the habit of Americans, it seems that we are looking for a shortcut: they want to offer "creativity classes" to increase creativity. Nevermind that there were not any creativity classes in the past, when kids did drill and kill and were more creative.

 

It seems to me that the previous generation of more creative kids did boring old rigorous school + lots of free time + lots of reading and the end result was creativity. That's the model that we should shoot for: get them away from the TV, give them facts to think with, and stop scheduling them to death.

:iagree::iagree::iagree:

 

I don't think schools have ever really taught creativity. I think they'd botch it if they tried.

[Nan in Mass]

I had 3 children, a billion projects, and various pets in an 800 square foot house. Now I am down a child, but the others are adult-sized now. I can be reeeeaaaallllyyy creative about use of space. It has made me a bit more sympathetic to those people who have nothing but a sofa and a tv in their living rooms. TV would be such a space-efficient entertainment. No way would I do it, though. My most current creative solution was to get a few large bins for my middle son's stuff. When he is away at college, the bins live in his bunk. When he is home, I fold up my drying rack and put the bins in the corner where it normally lives. When I want to dry laundry, I do it in the middle of the living room, in front of the woodstove, so it drys fast and then can go away again. I only dry half our things that way, anyway. Underware and jeans go through the dryer in the basement. This is working very well. One of my sister's creative storage solutions was to tack photo sleeves inside her upper kitchen cabinets and fill them with family photos. I see no reason why you couldn't write specifications for some of these design problems and give them to your children. You might want to be careful that you define your problem accurately, though, or you won't like the solutions they come up with. Remember the old story? A long time ago, people had a problem with people being buried alive. A group of people got together to try to solve this problem. People suggested things like bells with strings going down into the coffins. One man said he had a great solution to the problem - put a spike in the lid of every coffin over where the heart would be so that when you nailed down the coffin lid, the spike went into the heart. That is a good example of not defining one's problem properly GRIN. If your children are anything like mine, when you give them a practical household problem without a very accurate definition, they will come up with solutions that are not the sort of solutions you want them implementing.

 

The convergent/divergent part was the bit I thought most useful in the article, too.

 

-Nan

[Sebastian (a lady)]

I found this fascinating.

 

However, as is the habit of Americans, it seems that we are looking for a shortcut: they want to offer "creativity classes" to increase creativity. Nevermind that there were not any creativity classes in the past, when kids did drill and kill and were more creative.

 

It seems to me that the previous generation of more creative kids did boring old rigorous school + lots of free time + lots of reading and the end result was creativity. That's the model that we should shoot for: get them away from the TV, give them facts to think with, and stop scheduling them to death.

 

I think previous generations were also given a tremendous freedom to be unsafe also. I don't mean that in a sarcastic way that is critical of the past. I mean that we used to allow kids to take hammer and nails and build a tree fort. Not something solid and architeturally sound but a bunch of pallets up in a tree.

 

There used to be a lot more freedom to just tinker and figure out what happened. I would suggest that this is something missing from much of science now, which is so focused on outcomes that it doesn't really teach kids to observe what's happening or what they're seeing. How many science curriculums really have students individually growing plants and drawing them sprouting? The rise of video and computer and color photo technology makes it so much more "efficient" to just show them a pre-packaged summary. But that means the seedlings they see are the perfect examples of each stage, not a tray of 20 that are all showing individual development.

 

Look at the Dangerous Book for Boys or the American Boys/Girls Handy Book and you'll see what I mean about just letting kids build. How many kids know how to use a saw, hammer and nails to build something? Or even just build their own kite.

 

I'd also include deconstructing things. One of the best days at a museum my kids ever had was at COSI in Columbus, where they were able to take apart an old computer. It let them see the mechanics of how a floppy drive worked. They even got to put an ice cube on top of the heat sink and watch it melt in front of their eyes. Good stuff.

[Guest Dulcimeramy]

We absolutely can not afford for our children to learn to build canoes through trial and error. We can't fund 5yo popcorn entrepreneurs, either.

 

(Not that you shouldn't, if you have that kind of cash and are so inclined!)

 

I think my boys are very creative because of our inability to fund their creative whims. They have to dream it and make it happen; there are no blank checks to start with. They are given a solid education and hours and hours of free time, and we live on a shoestring that is getting thinner by the day.

 

Solid education + free time + need/desire = old-fashioned American creativity, or ingenuity.

 

Necessity is the mother of invention.

 

My four boys churn out a steady stream of inventions. Everything from machines to toys. They are very inspired by the Dangerous Book for Boys, and The American Boys Handy Book.

 

When they played at those things as little boys, I wondered how much their play pertained to modern life.

 

Now that we have no money, I see how it pertains! My teens are using that creativity to make do in hard times. My older son is famous in his Civil Air Patrol squadron for being able to figure out, and fix, anything, from flagpoles to ham radios. Creative problem solving. He learned it over homemade trebuchets in the backyard.

 

I see it in his inquisitive attitude toward high school level science. I see it in the absolute delight with which he masters his logic lessons.

 

My second son can repair almost anything around the house. I didn't teach him this. I just say, "Jonas, do something about this please, and you'll have to do it for free." And he does. He gets enormous satisfaction out of extending the life of tools, furniture, or whatever.

 

I'm sorry if I sound like I'm bragging. My point is to share my renewed faith in the American pioneer spirit that I see in my homeschooled boys. The equation will always be true:

 

Real Freedom + Education + Need = WOW.

[Susan in KY]

Great article. Thanks for posting.

[Farrar]

Homeschoolers can get caught between two extremes if we're not careful: a very child-centered model in which mom essentially caters to the child and the world is organized (by mom) around his or her preferences (learning style, whatever). This stifles creativity because there never arises that "necessity" which is the mother of invention. On the other hand, we homeschoolers can be very oriented to a schedule, syllabus, etc. so that the learning really is "school at home" and our kids don't have time to create (unless we cram in still another class for them!)

 

As my kids got older, one of the best things they do is Odyssey of the Mind. This is essentially a creative problem-solving competition in which a team of 7 or fewer kids has to work out a drama that incorporates (typically) an engineering problem or two, art work for the scenery, creative writing for the drama, sometimes music, and a ton of team work (including engineering types working well with drama types!) No outside assistance is allowed, so parents have to sit on their hands and tape their mouths shut and let the kids figure out their own way. It is GREAT! They meet weekly (or sometimes more) for abuot 8 months before the competition and in addition to working on the main presentation, they practice spontaneous problems involving either verbal creativity, hands on creativity, or both.

 

I agree with the pp who said that memorization, etc. is the foundation for creativity. We give the kids the classical stuff, but also give them the time, space, & opportunity to "do their own thing."

:iagree:

 

I feel like it's about finding a balance.

 

I also just really wanted to second the idea of doing Odyssey of the Mind or Destination Imagination (they're two organizations that do the almost the exact same thing). We started DI last year and I coach the team. When I went to the team manager training, the woman leading it said that people always have the misconception that DI teaches creativity. She pointed out that that's preposterous. They don't teach creativity - the program teaches ways to harness and direct creativity and learn to focus creativity on problems and challenges. Brilliant, I say. And perfect for homeschoolers because there's so much really high quality socialization involved - it's all about teambuilding and working together.

[Kathleen in VA]

We absolutely can not afford for our children to learn to build canoes through trial and error. We can't fund 5yo popcorn entrepreneurs, either.

 

(Not that you shouldn't, if you have that kind of cash and are so inclined!)

 

I think my boys are very creative because of our inability to fund their creative whims. They have to dream it and make it happen; there are no blank checks to start with. They are given a solid education and hours and hours of free time, and we live on a shoestring that is getting thinner by the day.

 

Solid education + free time + need/desire = old-fashioned American creativity, or ingenuity.

 

Necessity is the mother of invention.

 

My four boys churn out a steady stream of inventions. Everything from machines to toys. They are very inspired by the Dangerous Book for Boys, and The American Boys Handy Book.

 

When they played at those things as little boys, I wondered how much their play pertained to modern life.

 

Now that we have no money, I see how it pertains! My teens are using that creativity to make do in hard times. My older son is famous in his Civil Air Patrol squadron for being able to figure out, and fix, anything, from flagpoles to ham radios. Creative problem solving. He learned it over homemade trebuchets in the backyard.

 

I see it in his inquisitive attitude toward high school level science. I see it in the absolute delight with which he masters his logic lessons.

 

My second son can repair almost anything around the house. I didn't teach him this. I just say, "Jonas, do something about this please, and you'll have to do it for free." And he does. He gets enormous satisfaction out of extending the life of tools, furniture, or whatever.

 

I'm sorry if I sound like I'm bragging. My point is to share my renewed faith in the American pioneer spirit that I see in my homeschooled boys. The equation will always be true:

 

Real Freedom + Education + Need = WOW.

 

The article actually addresses this.

 

It’s also true that highly creative adults frequently grew up with hardship. Hardship by itself doesn’t lead to creativity, but it does force kids to become more flexible—and flexibility helps with creativity.

[justamouse]

 

 

OK, ladies, tell me if this a lame idea. We already have problems here at our house. Things like no money to buy thoughtful Christmas presents for our relatives, a need to feed 6 people on a tight budget, a way to make a 1000 sf house work for 6 people (been working on that for a LONG time, lol), and many, many more. Would it be project-based learning to turn one of these problems into a project for school - I mean, get my kids to find solutions to these problems using the divergent/convergent thinking process mentioned in the article? I'm just thinking, why make up some hypothetical problem or some real problem that has a solution that I really don't need right now, when I have plenty of real-life problems needing solutions already.

 

Again, I've really loved reading all your thoughts. There are so many really intelligent ladies on this forum. I'm gleaning as fast as I can.:)

 

I think that's a great idea because you can focus on joint solutions and singular solutions. We were 9 to 1000 sqft, I know the frustration.

 

After reading through Nan's post about doing the problem, asking the questions and getting the feeling it wasn't done right? I know that. I don't think it's teaching creativity per se, but that I, as the teacher didn't mine out of them what I could have--had I known what questions to ask. Asking those questions, "what else can this be used for" is not natural to me--it's natural for me to THINK that way, but I am always having to remind myself that other people don't think like that automatically and that stretching, taking something and turning it over a few times, needs to be taught. So when we get through a project I get the same feeling of, "This should have gone deeper, been more." and the fault lies with me, the teacher.

 

Some random thoughts:

 

My father ( mid-70's) has been a mentor at his college fraternity for many years. He is lamenting more and more the differences in problem-solving ability (which is a form of creativity) as the years have gone by. His thought is that kids' lives are structured for them to such an extent that they never have to be creative/responsible. He gives as an example baseball. When he was a kid, to play baseball, they had to make the diamond, choose teams which incorporated a range of ages (else they couldn't play), teach the younger kids how to do things, distribute the equipment they did have to best advantage , referee... He goes on about how different it is today: mom drives kids to field fully outfitted with equipment, coach teaches, refs, divides teams, at games, coach chooses positions, tells them when to run, ref makes calls, parents clap. All that's left for kids to do is the specific skills of the game itself.

 

I used to feel guilty when ds 18 was in 1st grade and we spent about 1-2 hours in school and he spent the rest of the time with his Playmobils, etc. Later, when he began to write, I saw the creativity that had developed in his Playmobil days coming through in his writing. We do our kids a great favor by giving them lots of free, unstructured time.

 

Homeschoolers can get caught between two extremes if we're not careful: a very child-centered model in which mom essentially caters to the child and the world is organized (by mom) around his or her preferences (learning style, whatever). This stifles creativity because there never arises that "necessity" which is the mother of invention. On the other hand, we homeschoolers can be very oriented to a schedule, syllabus, etc. so that the learning really is "school at home" and our kids don't have time to create (unless we cram in still another class for them!)

As my kids got older, one of the best things they do is Odyssey of the Mind. This is essentially a creative problem-solving competition in which a team of 7 or fewer kids has to work out a drama that incorporates (typically) an engineering problem or two, art work for the scenery, creative writing for the drama, sometimes music, and a ton of team work (including engineering types working well with drama types!) No outside assistance is allowed, so parents have to sit on their hands and tape their mouths shut and let the kids figure out their own way. It is GREAT! They meet weekly (or sometimes more) for abuot 8 months before the competition and in addition to working on the main presentation, they practice spontaneous problems involving either verbal creativity, hands on creativity, or both.

 

I agree with the pp who said that memorization, etc. is the foundation for creativity. We give the kids the classical stuff, but also give them the time, space, & opportunity to "do their own thing."

 

I know that frustration of having people that can't solve problems. I don't deal with it at work anymore, but my husband does, all day long. Instead of people fixing problems themselves, they take every minute thing to him. sometimes I call it common sense, too. :001_smile: but there is a definite lack of both creativity and common sense.

 

for the rest of your comment-the part that I highlighted-I couldn't agree more. Which is why it may seem to others that I'm not 'rigorous', but it's a constant seeking of that balance. Tinkering is needed, but to tinker, they need time, and to have that time, I need to allow them not only to have it, but to be relaxed enough so that when they DO have it, they're not zoning out, exhausted, but willing to get up and tinker. It takes energy to be creative-if I've drained them completely with schoolwork, there's nothing left to be creative with.

 

Also, I remember Odyssey of the Mind when I was in school-it was great, great fun, but only allowed to the gifted kids. Do they actually allow homeschoolers to join?

[justamouse]

:iagree:

 

I feel like it's about finding a balance.

 

I also just really wanted to second the idea of doing Odyssey of the Mind or Destination Imagination (they're two organizations that do the almost the exact same thing). We started DI last year and I coach the team. When I went to the team manager training, the woman leading it said that people always have the misconception that DI teaches creativity. She pointed out that that's preposterous. They don't teach creativity - the program teaches ways to harness and direct creativity and learn to focus creativity on problems and challenges. Brilliant, I say. And perfect for homeschoolers because there's so much really high quality socialization involved - it's all about teambuilding and working together.

 

 

I'll have to look this up, thanks for posting about it!

[Plink]

Can you explain? I don't understand what you mean. : ) I promise not to be insulted. I would be grateful for any insight anyone can offer as I struggle to find the right balance between structured and unstructured learning for my son.

 

I'll give it another go. (no guarantees that it will be any clearer than my first attempt):tongue_smilie:

 

I believe that a major portion of creativity is confidence; the confidence to try; the confidence to do something different from their peers; the confidence to follow through with an idea, despite the odds.

 

This has nothing to do with money. (The canoe I mentioned before was built with things found on the curb and leftover supplies found or borrowed) It is simply the freedom to have time to think about and try things on their own. Down time that isn't micro-managed or questioned by well meaning parents.

 

When we spoon feed our children the "right" answers to projects that they are working on, we are slowly eroding that confidence. When we intentionally follow up every one of their free-time activities with questions intended to direct their learning we are eroding that confidence. When we step in to help when they did not ask for it, we are eroding that confidence.

 

By all means, we should give our children all of the tools to succeed - teach them how to research, teach them the scientific method, teach them history, teach them to ask intelligent questions, teach them logic, etc., but in my opinion we should not teach creativity. We should foster creativity by providing them with the freedom to try out their ideas; even the ones that we don't believe in yet.

 

There is this weird part of us as moms that wants to see our baby as perfect, never getting anything wrong. We want them to succeed, and we think that our help is best for them. While this serves us well as teachers for many subjects (no Johnny, that isn't an "s," it is a "b") we need to learn to back off when we close the books.

 

All of us can remember something that our mom specifically told us to do when we were growing up. We ignored it. She was right. We learned our lesson - for ourselves. She could have told us the result, but it had no meaning until there was a real experience to prove it.

 

Being creative is one thing when shooting off answers to hypothetical questions - they will spout off anything, knowing that there is no risk. Their answers will be off the wall because that is what we are asking them to do. It is what they will get approval for. Is this truly creativity? It is creative thinking - but is it creativity?

 

Being creative in real life is entirely different. We need to give them the confidence to follow through with their own gut, even if the rest of the world says that it won't work, or it is ugly, or it is ridiculous. When they get scoffed at for trying, will they have the confidence to go on? I believe that if our children see that we trust them, then they will have confidence in themselves. It is okay to fail sometimes. Honestly. That is how discoveries are made.

 

Clear as mud now - right? Let me try an example.

 

My sister is a math whiz. While taking a master's level course she answered a question wrong. Her professor wrote "follow this to it's logical conclusion" on her paper. She did. It worked. So she tried it again, and again, and again, and it still worked. So she talked to the professor, who didn't believe her, but took the paper back anyway and looked it. He looked it over and talked with some colleagues, who then talked with a bunch of other professors. None of them could prove her wrong. She was right - even though she answered the question in a way completely different from what her professor expected. If she had simply done the problem the way she was taught, she would have gotten it right, and she would have made her life a lot easier, but she wouldn't have broken this new ground in the field of mathematics. She had to be confident to do this. She had to be willing to hear that she was wrong. She had to be willing confront authority and to go against the flow to see if her idea was a good one. Her creativity was rewarded.

 

She could have failed - my parents expected her to fail - but she didn't. Creativity, even in math. Rare, but totally possible.

 

IMHO give your kids the confidence to try, and they will be creative in ways that will surprise you.

[hillfarm]

My dd is 12yo and we have done well with the first "bounce". Her big thing is to want to get various different animals as pets. Some of her initial ideas are highly original and inventive. For example, there was the time she wanted to get a lemur and teach him to climb up people's drain pipes and to use his clever little hands to clean out their gutters!

 

We discuss the idea and I try to ask leading questions to help her dig a little deeper. Then I never say No (however my mind is screaming that NO, we will NOT be getting a lemur, nor camel, nor waterbuffalo, nor....). I always tell her to do her research and get back to dh and me with the specifics of how she plans to pay for, house, and care for said animal.

 

So far, these projects have always stalled at the research phase. (Thank God!) The lemur was a no-go due to the need for a warmer climate than we can provide. The camel cost too much - did you know you can buy a used camel for $8,000.00? The waterbuffalo required more warmth and more wet than we have around here. Etc.

 

I do like the idea of coming up with a problem and letting her come up with various solutions. I may select one based here at our home and another more distant one, based on something in the news. We are studying logic now, but were progressing through it quite rapidly and I was wondering what to do to fill the rest of the year. Now I think we will do "creativity studies"! (I'll be sure to post on the For Sale board when we have baby lemurs available:tongue_smilie:.)

[Nan in Mass]

Be happy that she has her eye on impractical, practically mythical pets at the moment. It probably won't take her long to realize that there is a fund of free pets nearby in the form of injured wildlife (warning - probably illegal) and abandonned pets. The theoretical problems of housing and feeding a camel will be nothing compared to the heartbreak of trying to rescue a robin. I was this child. My father, who had spent some time in Panama as a child, suggested that I would find a monkey amusing. This is when I a senior, about to go off to a dorm living situation. My mother did what you are doing and without actually forbidding the monkey, managed to get me to see that I couldn't properly take care of one. She suggested a chinchilla, which she had found to be one of the more intelligent sort of cage animals (too intelligent I would say now as a consciencious adult). Then injured animals began dropping into my lap. And abandonned pets. Forewarned is forearmed - you might want to do a little investigating now about legalities, expense, shelters, and wildlife rescue centers. At the very least, I suggest you beg borrow or steal the phone number of your nearest licensed wildlife rehabber. I've never succeeded in giving any animals to one (they always seem to be leaving for vacation or something), but maybe you will have more luck. And find your nearest no-kill shelter and figure out its policies. And see if there is a vet in your area that will treat strays for free. That way, when you are presented with the emergency, you won't let your daughter down. I think it is probably inevitable, if you haven't already been dealing with it. A cage and a supply of old towels isn't a bad idea, either.

-Nan

[Nan in Mass]

As someone who has raised her boys on The American Boy's Handibook, may I suggest that you get good at praying hard for their safety? Mine are now 23, 20, and 16 and every day I wake up grateful that they are still alive. I understand the attraction of not raising one's children this way. You have to hit the right balance between freedom and safety and then pray hard that your older children will stay on that tightrope. One of my oldest's friends is still in rehab after a quadding accident in the spring. It is a miracle that he is alive. It is a miracle that we are all alive, actually. I don't mean to sound overly cynical about the whole creativity thing. I just am living with some of the fallout of having succeeded (in a very mild way - no Einsteins here) and there are days when I can see the attraction of replacing all the books and projects and plane tickets with one tv set and a bunch of safety rules.

-Nan

[Gratia271]

As someone who has raised her boys on The American Boy's Handibook, may I suggest that you get good at praying hard for their safety? Mine are now 23, 20, and 16 and every day I wake up grateful that they are still alive. I understand the attraction of not raising one's children this way. You have to hit the right balance between freedom and safety and then pray hard that your older children will stay on that tightrope. One of my oldest's friends is still in rehab after a quadding accident in the spring. It is a miracle that he is alive. It is a miracle that we are all alive, actually. I don't mean to sound overly cynical about the whole creativity thing. I just am living with some of the fallout of having succeeded (in a very mild way - no Einsteins here) and there are days when I can see the attraction of replacing all the books and projects and plane tickets with one tv set and a bunch of safety rules.

-Nan

 

Thanks for sharing your wisdom. As a parent raising my son similarly, I often worry about ds.... !

[sparrow]

 

My father ( mid-70's) has been a mentor at his college fraternity for many years. He is lamenting more and more the differences in problem-solving ability (which is a form of creativity) as the years have gone by. His thought is that kids' lives are structured for them to such an extent that they never have to be creative/responsible.

 

 

We own a campground and see the wealth of creativity and knowledge from your father's (and my father's!) generation everyday. The men I'm talking about are retired farmers and skilled tradesmen. These men stay with us for the summer season and have saved our hide on more than one occasion! They are able to come at problems, and believe me, there are problems you've probably never dreamed of at a campground:tongue_smilie:, from an angle we'd never thought of and FIX things they've never seen before. They are fearless, because they had to be. As I'm biting my nails saying, "do you think it will work?!" they're saying, "I don't know. Let's give it a try!" (often followed by, "turn on the electricity!").

 

My husband is learning so much more in his late 30's than he ever learned in a traditional classroom situation. He laments the things he doesn't know yet, but I just tell him he has 30 years to catch up :D. I can already see a difference in how he approaches a task now. He was always musically creative, but now his creativity and *problem solving skills* are in the forefront.

 

I read the posted article over the summer and found it really interesting. I'm glad it was brought up in this thread. It seems like many of the posts, including mine, are referring to boys/men and creativity. Do you think it is slightly less of a concern for girls thinking creatively today?

[Nan in Mass]

I think I see what you mean. I guess I make a distinction between a project that is supposed to teach a set of skills or concepts, and one that is supposed to encourage creativity. I was refering to the former in my post about feeling unsatisfied with my attempts project-based learning. I have spent many wakeful nights thinking about the balance between structured and unstructured projects in regards to science (mostly) and some people on the high school board have tried to help me think through the whole thing. If you search for microscope and Nan in Mass, you will probably find my specific question and the sort-of conclusions we came to. I like the piano-playing analogy that we came up with the best. You can give a child a piano and let them play with it and they will have a good time and make up their own things, but probably it is even better to give the child a piano and some lessons and encourage lots of free time to play around with what they are learning. The lessons may not be fun, and the practising may not be fun, but the end result is probably going to be more satisfactory to the child than just giving them the piano. In my case, I was trying to figure out whether the system of science experiments I had put in place was a good system or whether my son would learn more (truly learn, I mean, not just appear to learn or learn canned information) if he were given more guidance than just a notebook, some equipment, and a lab report format. I was trying to decide whether this was analogous to the giving-only-a-piano situation. I think the whole subject of how much creativity to allow or encourage during the time you have set aside for schoolwork becomes much more complicated when the child is 16 and trying to get into engineering school. It becomes more a matter of finding the right balance of various sorts of learning and one is trying to hit a moving target (growing child). Science is particularly tricky because the content base is huge. I concluded that more guidance would be a good thing but still haven't really figured out how to do that effectively. My older son filled out worksheets for his chem labs at CC. I have just given my son a composition book and told him it is his lab notebook. (Similar to making them choose their own paper topics.) Somehow, the whole worksheets thing worries me. It seems to me that students used to have to keep this sort of notebook and come up with their own papers and things without quite so much guidance. Maybe I have a false picture of the way education used to work? That is the sort of structure that I think would make a good half-way point, though, that might speed up the learning process. I am stuck with a 16yo who is doing really, really simple experiments when with a bit more guidance, he would be able to do things that sounded less like the things we did (with guidance) in the grammar stage. Forget grading. It is difficult to grade when you are asking the child to do something over and over (like design and carry out an experiment or reading and writing about great books) sometimes over the course of years, assuming that they will do it badly at first and then slowly get better. It forces you to define what bad (for an adult) result is appropriately bad for a particular age, something I don't have the experience to do because I have only seen my own children. I seem to do nothing but whine in this thread. Sorry. Consider it a forewarned is forearmed sort of thing for the problems associated with the more real and less structured sorts of learning. Perhaps you won't be thrown for a loop when you hit these sorts of issues if you have read about my struggles with them.

 

Meanwhile (for those who wondered what happened with the microscope), my son finally figured out how to see the microbes in our lake and has managed to capture some (hopefully) pelomyia palustris and is now considering experiment ideas. I hope they live until next week.

 

-Nan

[mcconnellboys]

I think this is very true and I just posted on another thread about the models that are used in other successful schools in the world.

 

Many of them are using either project based learning or they are allowing students to set and gauge their own educational goals individually (in association with parents and a tutor).

 

Making any individual more *responsible* for his or her own life (however you choose to accomplish this) is bound to make their work product better.

 

Most humans, and boys in general, I think, are results driven. Useless work that never even gets properly evaluated (as occurs so often in our current school system here in the U.S.) just makes children feel useless and antipathetic toward schools, in general.... And I believe that this can lead to a general state of malaise as one goes through adult life, too....

[Doodle]

I used to feel guilty when ds 18 was in 1st grade and we spent about 1-2 hours in school and he spent the rest of the time with his Playmobils, etc. Later, when he began to write, I saw the creativity that had developed in his Playmobil days coming through in his writing. We do our kids a great favor by giving them lots of free, unstructured time.

 

 

Doodle is 1st grade and I am currently experiencing the same guilt and worry. He spends a lot of free time with his Legos, Lincoln Logs, trucks, K'nex, stuff animals, Robotix and cardboard boxes. I love to see him play, but there is always the worry that I am slacking by not having longer, regimented, structured book learning.

[mcconnellboys]

I agree and I think the article supported that. Didn't it say that the same parts of the brain were used by engineers as artists?

 

Any types of creative, problem-solving, and/or real-world type situations are going to stimulate creativity if the person engaged in such activities is at least semi-enjoying them - that is, interested and engaged in some way.

 

Lots of people working in various retail jobs come up with innovations for their companies all the time. There has to be some stimulus, though, for that to occur.... A typical bored cashier who hates her job is not typically going to be one of the people doing this....

 

I don't think we understand at all how to create such stimulii in every single person equally....

[Guest]

Creativity most likely has a genetic component. I know from reading about autism spectrum disorders that scientists have isolated a gene that is associated with rigid thinking, so most likely there is something that works the other way as well; and to really complicate matters most people probably have a little of each going on. And there are, it would seem, a number of very different ways or areas in which people's creativity can come out.

 

Given that, we can foster or repress levels and types of creativity in children and indeed of people of all ages. The more pressurized and test-driven curricula become, the more homework is piled on kids, the more repressive its effects regarding creativity -- especially given the need for long periods of time for incubation and unstructured mental and physical messing about.