What would you do if you wanted to decorate a new restaurant or bar? Where would you go for inspiration or materials? In Budapest, you might look to Szimpla Kert, the original “ruin bar.” While ruin bars are a phenomenon, Szimpla Kert was the first. One website described the interior as “look[ing] as though it … Continue reading
I’m back! Again. Interesting how time I need to spend writing and teaching about creativity sometimes keeps me from, well, writing and teaching about creativity. I’ve been busy putting the finishing touches on the 6th edition of Creativity in the Classroom and writing for another project on creativity and talent development. So I’ve had a … Continue reading
Today I’m wearing my “Nevertheless She Persisted” tee shirt, tribute to Senator Elizabeth Warren’s political persistence, and the persistence of so many women who have needed determination to accomplish their goals. I did not know it would be so appropriate to today’s creativity news. This week the Creativity Post blog featured a summary of new … Continue reading
As a girl, I was both amused and inspired by Abigail Adams’ 1776 letter to her husband John, in which she urged him and other members of the Continental Congress to “remember the ladies” when considering the laws for the newly formed country. Today I admire her even more, and find it fitting that in … Continue reading
I will admit I’ve frequently railed against using business models to design and evaluate schools. There are so many ways schools and businesses are different that attempting to translate one to the other risks assuming children are some kind of consistent raw material that can be transformed into a uniform product. I can see teachers … Continue reading
It is sad, but perhaps not unexpected, that since I recently wrote about discouraged educators, I’ve spent a lot of time coaching a young teacher friend. She’s trying to find her way through an interaction with an administrator that has her questioning whether she belongs in public education at all. The specifics don’t matter because … Continue reading
Recently I had the chance to make spring sugar cookies with a group of young friends. We had all the cookie cutters you might expect–flowers, butterflies, hearts, rabbits, and eggs. The children had a grand time rolling out dough, cutting cookies, and later frosting them. Some of the cookies looked typical, but the ones we … Continue reading
Again, today, I’m thinking about motivation, specifically, motivation to learn. Needless to say, teachers hope students will be motivated to learn the content they’ve prepared. There are few things more frustrating than facing a class with a carefully crafted lesson only to be met with indifference. Thinking about what motivates students to learn—and how it … Continue reading
They say that medical students spend much of their early training examining themselves for symptoms of every disease they study, no matter how obscure. The more they think about something, the more they find evidence of it in their lives. I’m finding something similar (although less frightening) happening to me this semester as I’ve taken … Continue reading
Can squeezing a soft ball help you generate more ideas? How about a hard ball? What would you predict? Those are questions addressed by researcher JongHan Kim in a study titled, logically enough, “Physical Activity Benefits Creativity: Squeezing a Ball for Enhancing Creativity.” Studies in embodied cognition both fascinate and puzzle me. The assumption of … Continue reading
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