Kindergarten Approach to Learning

"In traditional kindergartens, children are constantly designing, creating, experimenting, and exploring. Two children might start playing with wooden blocks; over time, they build a collection of towers. A classmate sees the towers and starts pushing his toy car between them. But the towers are too close together, so the children start moving the towers further apart to make room for the cars. In the process, one of the towers falls down. After a brief argument over who was at fault, they start talking about how to build a taller and stronger tower. The teacher shows them pictures of real-world skyscrapers, and they notice that the bottoms of the buildings are wider than the tops. So they decide to rebuild their block tower with a wider base than before."

"In going through this process, kindergarten students develop and refine their abilities as creative thinkers. They learn to develop their own ideas, try them out, test the boundaries, experiment with alternatives, get input from others – and, perhaps most significantly, generate new ideas based on their experiences. In reality, the steps in the process are not as distinct or sequential as indicated in the diagram. Imagining, creating, playing, sharing, and reflecting are mixed together in many different ways. But the key elements are always there, in one form or another." 

"Unfortunately, most schools are out-of-step with today’s needs: they were not designed to help students develop as creative thinkers. Kindergartens (at least those that remain true to the kindergarten tradition) are an exception. The traditional kindergarten approach to learning is well- matched to the needs of the current society, and should be extended to learners of all ages." 

These quotes stood out to me because I believe that when students are engaged, it fosters better learning. Also, I believe that imagining and creating are real-world skills that students will benefit from practicing and acquiring. I think it's sad that schools have been "out-of-step" with the needs of 21st century learners, but I do think that there are some things we can do to change this. We can start by recognizing what we do that kills creativity in the first place.

Creativity Killers