How often do we encourage creativity to flow, develop and flower as a big part of our lives both professional and personal? How often do we make time to nurture or indulge in creative processes? Most people talk about that one-day when they will make time to take up that course in pottery or get back to their singular talent of painting or singing. We shy away from learning, especially the sort that does not lead to an academic end or fulfills a professional goal or objective.
Most people treat education as a phase of life that falls away into the past and reminds one mostly of pleasant memories of growing up, friendships and change. No one thinks of revisiting this phase in the role of a student again, especially as an adult. Somewhere the urge to fly and indulge in things that make us wonder, things that fill our imagination with countless possibilities and make us explore our curiosity have disappeared. The clutter of information all around, available at the click of a button has turned the spirit of adventure to mundane clicking.
Most people treat education as a phase of life that falls away into the past and reminds one mostly of pleasant memories of growing up, friendships and change. No one thinks of revisiting this phase in the role of a student again, especially as an adult. Somewhere the urge to fly and indulge in things that make us wonder, things that fill our imagination with countless possibilities and make us explore our curiosity have disappeared. The clutter of information all around, available at the click of a button has turned the spirit of adventure to mundane clicking.
Can one understand the challenges that stop people from exploring and indulging in creative learning in later lives?
How should one define creative learning? Why would anyone want to indulge int it?
4 comments:
Hey, pls dont responde if you find my question annoying/smacking of taking too much liberty (my language has gone to the dogs, cant think of the right word)- but do you do any work with toddlers? I have a 1.5 year old, and am constantly wondering what i shd do to encourage her learning.
Hi Aish
Yes the place where I work conducts a program called Playclub for children in the age of 1.5yrs-2.5yrs. Its a parent interactive program.I don't teach this program but sure I can help you with suggestions.
Probably as a mother instinctively you might have done a lot of these things yourself.
1.Please read to your child. Encourage reading activitiy as a shared activity where soemtimes you read, sometimes maybe grandparents or your partner. At times let her tell you the story as over a period of time she would have a favouite book and would want to refer to it again and again.Read or share the story with as much enhtusiasm as you did the first time round!!! When you read make the story come alive by adding characters from her daily life(such as a father in the story could be her dad and the child could be sanjana herself(that's her name?)and the activities that are happening inthe book could be activities that Sanjana and you all could indulge in.
2.Whatever activity you do talk to her about it, explain it.
Use dynamic language(more action word oriented).Make up your own moving and speaking rhymes as you go about daily chores.
for example we have a song in the playclub:"Clean up time, Clean up time, toys away, toys away, everybody clean up, everybody clean up, let's all help.
3.Give responsibilities
example:like cleaning up the toys by picking them up and putting them back in the allotted space. Teaches catgorisation, sequencing and association.
Let me know how it goes with these and I will attend to some more. got to run right now.
Hey, thanks! And the word I was looking for, and couldnt get was presumptuous (sigh).
I do read to her- started reading to her when she was a little over 6mos old, but seem to have lost interest offlate- more like lack of time, actually. Now dont read for more than 15 mins a day. If you guys emphasise so much on that, will have to start focussing on that again.
Never tried the rhymes- that sounds really interesting! Shd try that, esp since she has started repeating nursery rhymes now.
Think I really envy your job- though the pressure must be quite high, shdnt it? Could you afford to have off days, when you end up being grouchy/off color for no reason at all?
Hi Aish
I doubt that kind of luxury exists in any job(wink)!
The only part that is different from other jobs is that inspite of the demanding work, its interesting and doesn't get mundane as I can choose to keep it dynamic.Based on each group's individual contribution, I can work with different ideas and explore different perspectives to a certain theme. Its amazing becuase children see things without adult restrictions, their imagination is quite untethered(is that the right word?).
You could check out a link on poetry (www.learning-iniotiatives.blogspot.com). The idea is to just take normal day tasks and turn them into simple rhymes. HAve a little bit of fun with words.
I think 15 min of reading in a day is enough as a shatred activity with your child. Though encourage your daughter to pick up books and share them with you or anyone else such as grandparents or her father.
You could also indulge in play with her- like going on an adventure after reading a story, looking out for dragons or something else depending on what takes her fancy.While going about this task see what kind of open ended questions you can ask her, example: where do you think the dragon lives. Where can we find him? How can we go there? What should we take with us? and so on. Children will build some amount of conflict on their own at times to keep it interesting and to test their own limits.
Experiment with a story and see how it works. Use simple things as props to create caves, tents, dungeons, pirate hats and masks.It would just had to the fun.
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