There was an interesting article in the Arts and Entertainment section of the Sunday Kansas City Star. The piece was actually a review of a book titled Play: How it Shapes the Brain and Invigorates the Soul by Stuart Brown and Christopher Vaughn - Avery publisher $24.95
It opens talking about how if you work at Cal Tech's prestigious Jet Propulsion Lab, you better be the best, the brightest an be ready to talk about how you played as a kid.
Vaughn and Brown believe that play is the "stick that stirs the drink." The message I gleaned from the review is that Vaughn and Brown as well as others have come to the realization that schools have become assembly lines for high test scores but real learning is grounded in creativity and creativity is born of play.
While seeing this article is not particularly revolutionary information to me, It marks the second time in oh, something less then six months I've seen discussions suggesting that some of the top flight organizations and employers in the U.S. are reaching the conclusion that they are better served by employees that are well grounded in creativity. This seems to change the whole right brain left brain concept of intelligence vs creativity. I guess being creative is after all a marketable commodity.
Great Scott mentioned to me not long ago that high stakes testing has actually been shown in studies to decrease writing skills, and I believe it.
ReplyDeleteThis last week I took an online workshop on scoring the writing portion of Missouri's new End of Course exam for 10th grade (English 2). I was pleasantly surprised to see how much emphasis was put on creative and specific detail and a bit horrified that not more emphasis was put on conventions of grammar and punctuation. A mixed reaction, yes, but then, different people have differing preferences when it comes to writing.
Thanks for this post. Interesting information. It makes me glad that I made sure our girls had so much down time at home rather than pushing them to join all the activities and busy-ness that so many kids are hustled into from pre-school on.