Child to Adulthood: Creativity and Productivity, by Keith Sawyer

R. Keith Sawyer

http://www.artsci.wustl.edu/~ksawyer/

As an undergraduate at MIT, Keith Sawyer often pulled out a new game from his pocket that he had invented.  Also, he enjoyed playing music, from classical to improvisational jazz.  These seemed like interesting hobbies, but it's amazing that his playtime turned into a productive professional career for him, greater than his college major!  He is now a productive author and professor in the area of "Cultivating Creativity."  Who knew that play would turn into profession?
------------------From his blog two days ago, Oct. 29, describing speakers he heard, I see many similarities with my own outlook:
"She [Shirley Brice Heath] talked about those people who’d done creative things in life, and what those same people had been like way back in childhood. The most important trait was courage, the decision to take an action and not worry about the risks. Yes, some of the children took unwise risks and got in trouble; but the ones who thrived looked at their community and looked for what needed to be done. Their creativity was rarely about making a product; instead, they created nonprofit and volunteer organizations and websites."
about Ellen Winner...
"The one she focused on was 'stretch/expand,' when teachers asked students things like 'How could you do this differently?' or 'Why don’t you try it with this other material?' What I love about this research is that it suggests we might try doing the same things in non-art classes–even in math, science, or engineering."
from http://keithsawyer.wordpress.com/2011/10/29/cultivating-creativity-2/
________________[S.M.:    This is exactly what I'm interested in--catching children while they're young enough to be willing to explore new areas of creativity, and use this to pull them in the direction of the STEM areas (learning math, science, and engineering; using technology).  Further,  Sawyer described my favorite teaching approach, constructivism, within a 2006 posting by Neil Schoenherr: ]
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Sawyer's QUOTE: "Most of the toys geared at children age six and younger are based on an educational theory known as constructivism," Sawyer says. "Constructivism is the idea that children create their own knowledge by actively participating in the learning process. Playing with toys — even something as simple as blocks — allows children to create their own play environment and stimulate their imagination."

Basically any kind of toy is good for young children as long as it is safe, of course, well-constructed and age appropriate, he says. "Parents can relax a little bit. There aren't really any bad toys or bad kinds of play. Because of my research on children's improvisation during fantasy play — which leads to all sorts of social and conversational advancement — I like to see pretend play that is more loosely structured and more improvisational."
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Video game systems have become popular for children of all ages and Sawyer says that they are not as bad as some parents might think. "Most of the research is actually pretty favorable for video games," Sawyer says. "The big difference between television and video games is that TV is passive while video games are active. While playing a video game, your child isn't physically interacting with what's on the screen, but his or her mind is very much engaged. Most video games are much better than watching television."
According to Sawyer, most research also shows that video games do not turn children into loners. "Games support a lot of social interaction between children. They tend to play video games with friends and when they are at school they brag about the highest level they've reached in a game."
The one down side to video games as far as creativity and improvisation are concerned, Sawyer maintains, is that video game worlds are much more constrained than reality. "If a child is playing a fantasy game with his friends, the options are unlimited. I think improvisation is very important for development. If a child was playing only video games he or she might lose the ability to improvise creatively."
---------------------end of selections from Neil Schoenherr article, "Finding educational toys is not hard; key is keeping child's age in mind" http://news.wustl.edu/news/Pages/4232.aspx, December 6, 2006
Just published by Cambridge University Press: Structure and Improvisation in Creative Teaching, edited by Keith Sawyer with a foreword by David Berliner.