"This playdate garbage is ruining our kids. I shudder every time someone asks me if our kids can have a playdate together. That word is almost as bad as Mr. Mom. "

thanks to Post Oak parent Richard Yoo for forwarding Chris Bernholdt's great article to me.

National Institute for Play (Really!)

This is serious stuff. The science of play.   Stuart Brown, founding director of the National Institute for Play,  is interviewed on my favorite early-early-Sunday morning radio show, "On Being" with Krista Tippett.  "Play, spirit and character."


"Who knew that we learn empathy, trust, irony, and problem solving through play — something the dictionary defines as "pleasurable and apparently purposeless activity." Dr. Stuart Brown suggests that the rough-and-tumble play of children actually prevents violent behavior, and that play can grow human talents and character across a lifetime. Play, as he studies it, is an indispensable part of being human."




So when I brought my remote control helicopter back to work today, so I could fly it out of the wind in the school gym, I did so with a sense of higher purpose.




Lighten up.  Seriously.  It's good for your soul. It's good for your creativity.  And that's good for all of us.

despite their schooling--not because of it

How to develop innovators. That's the tag line of Tony Wagner's recent article in the Wall Street Journal.

Samples:
"Learning in most conventional education settings is a passive experience: The students listen. But at the most innovative schools, classes are "hands-on," and students are creators, not mere consumers."

"In most high-school and college classes, failure is penalized. But without trial and error, there is no innovation."

"In conventional schools, students learn so that they can get good grades. My most important research finding is that young innovators are intrinsically motivated. The culture of learning in programs that excel at educating for innovation emphasize what I call the three P's—play, passion and purpose. The play is discovery-based learning that leads young people to find and pursue a passion, which evolves, over time, into a deeper sense of purpose."

The Virtues of Play

Here's a blog post from Jonah Lehrer, author of How we decide and Proust was a neuroscientist.

Does direct teaching make children less creative?

New research shows why teaching kids more and more, at ever-younger ages, may backfire