In the United States, it is almost time for Thanksgiving, our national celebration of gratitude and food. Two years ago at this time our household was recovering from a fire–nothing huge, but enough to fill the house with smoke and our lives with chaos for weeks. It reminded us of the many things we take … Continue reading
OK, I’ll admit it. Staying up late to watch the beginning of Jimmy Fallon’s Tonight Show is one of my guilty pleasures. I know I should go to bed. I know I can see videos the next day. But Fallon’s inventive craziness is sometimes too much to resist. One of my favorite segments is Fallonventions. … Continue reading
Which is denser, concentrated detergent or regular strength? Which fish swim more quickly, those with plants in their tank or a mechanical aerator? Which cleaner kills more bacteria on cafeteria tables? What would happen if we poured milk instead of water on bean plants? These are just a few of the questions from my elementary … Continue reading
One key way to encourage student questioning is to think about the questions that creative professionals in a discipline might ask. Every field moves forward when individuals ask questions. Helping students understand the questions in a field helps them envision how the creative processes of the discipline move forward. So, what about history? As a … Continue reading
One of the three keys I’ve identified for supporting creativity in the classroom is teaching the creative methodologies of the disciplines you are teaching. “Teaching the creative methodologies” is a fancy phrase for the idea that, whatever subject you are teaching, you teach not just the “what” of the subject but the “how” as well. … Continue reading
When we talk to young people about the dangers of posting potentially damaging photos and commentary on social media, one of the key arguments is, “Once you post it, it never goes away.” Fortunately for us, the flip side of this statement is, “When there’s good stuff online, it often stays there a long time.” … Continue reading
One of my favorite tools for helping students move from absorbers to questioners comes from Deborah Meier. She cites five Habits of Mind underlying Boston’s Mission Hill School, each of which can be framed as a question. Here, from Meier’s 2009 article “Democracy at Risk” are the five questions that she believes can define a … Continue reading
Halloween is almost here, and along with creative opportunities for scary story writing (see here and here), come some silly-story options as well. I’ve written previously about Halloween parodies of favorite tales. I also love the story of Delia the witch in It’s Raining Bats and Frogs. When Delia is frustrated by rain on the … Continue reading
One of the books that has helped pushed questioning to the front-and-center of the education agenda is Warren Berger’s A More Beautiful Question. A More Beautiful Question is not a book about education specifically, but a book about the way raising questions changes human learning, interaction, and invention. This is a book focused on innovation, … Continue reading
Dan Rothstein and Luz Santana’s book, Make Just One Change, suggests the one strategy that will transform education is teaching students to ask their own questions. Interestingly, their journey to this conclusion began, not with students, but with parents. Working with parents in a dropout prevention program in the 1980s, the authors repeatedly heard from … Continue reading
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