Group items matching

in title, tags, annotations or url

With no explicit math or literacy taught until first grade, the Swiss have no set goals for kindergartners beyond a few measurements, like using scissors and writing one’s own name. They instead have chosen to focus on the social interaction and emotional well-being found in free play.

With many parents and educators overwhelmed by the amount of academics required for kindergartners — and the testing requirements at that age  — it’s no surprise that the forest kindergarten, and the passion for bringing more free play to young children during the school day, is catching on stateside.

“So much of what is going on and the kind of play they do, symbolic play, is really pre-reading,” Molomot said. “It’s a very important foundation for reading.

Play lets the young learn by randomly and variably trying out a range of actions and ideas, and then working out the consequences.

The positive consequence is that animals who play are better at generating new possibilities.

they were more likely to imagine other ways the world might be.

“executive function,” the ability to self-regulate, the measurement of which turns out to be a better indicator of success in school than the results of an IQ test. Kids with good self-regulation skills are better able to control their emotions, resist impulsive behavior, and become self-disciplined and self-controlled.

how do we reconcile today’s anxious parents and the highly structured environment with our children’s need for unstructured, self-regulated play?

The primary requirement for unsupervised play is uninterrupted stretches of time

but if your kids aren’t engaged, it’s about agency, not technology

The real fact is that grades don’t tell us much other than what students are able to remember for the test or how well they learned to play the game of school.

with a 100 hours of investment into a new skill or practice, you can hit a tipping point,

The nature of maker-based learning actively engages students, nurtures their agency, improves efficacy, and develops a creator or producer identity instead of a (passive) consumer one.

In Thomas’ experience, too many people fail to reflect on WHY they’re choosing certain tools, and HOW those tools will be integrated into the curriculum and culture of school.

Creative leadership is rich with paradoxes. Creative leaders are driven by their internal passion and purpose, yet they also have an externally oriented, explorative mindset. Creative leaders lead from the front by envisioning a better future, pointing the way and setting an aspiration, yet they achieve this by orchestrating a creative team, often leading from behind to bring out the best in others. In this article, we describe the competencies of a creative leader in detail, and invite you to look in the mirror and see how you score on those key competencies. We explore the topic of paradoxes found in creative leadership and leave you with some practical suggestions on how to grow as a creative leader.

We discovered that self-awareness is the cornerstone of leadership: great leaders are aware of what we call their ‘leadership gifts’ as well as their ‘learning edges’. And we found out that self-awareness helps leaders to build authenticity, as great leaders think and act from a place of truth within themselves.

At THNK, we distinguish between a management team and a creative team. A management team typically comprises seven or more members and is charged with running an existing business. By contrast, a creative team has ideally three members and is focused on seeking new solutions.

the physical space for tinkering matters much less than the mental space that you create for young makers.

To be effective tinkerers, students need to achieve a state of mind in which they are primed to play and make joyful discoveries.

telling a group of little kids that it’s okay to make mistakes is not an effective way to deliver your message. The droning voice of the teachers in the Peanuts cartoons springs to mind! To get kids to internalize your message and truly take it to heart, you have to show them in a wide variety of ways what you really mean.