WHAT IS THE BEST approach to solving a problem? From kindergarten on, most children are taught that there is one optimal answer to any question. And that they should work logically, step by step, to reach that prize. In many cases, this tactic works. But in other situations, the newest concepts, wisest insights and most creative solutions arise only when people abandon established approaches and habitual ways of thinking. When a tire designer learns, from studying the feet of frogs, how to get the best traction on a wet road, he discovers a strategy that the mere application of logic never would have provided. Yet we are not teaching children how to solve problems in unconventional ways.
Outside-the-box thinking can be difficult to achieve in adulthood, because often it has been driven out of us over the course of our education and professional experience. Children, however, begin with a clean slate, so teachers and parents ought to challenge themselves to help them discover unusual paths. Boys and girls who grow up with this exposure will grasp new material better, retain their creativity and be ready to make the intuitive leaps that lead to great new ideas.
The Man inside the Traffic Light
During learning, our brains process information stored in the so-called cognitive maps of the cerebral cortex. These associations among neurons are very flexible, as psychologist Martha Farah of the University of Michigan at Ann Arbor demonstrated a decade ago. Farah studied how the brains of Canadian postal workers recognize letters and numbers. Normally, different regions of the cortex handle letters and numbers. But Canadian postal codes consist of a mix of these symbols, such as H3A 1Y2 in Montreal. Sure enough, postal workers who have sorted mail for years process letters and numbers together in a single cognitive map.
The same plasticity is used when reaching outside the box. In cognitive maps, learned information is always connected with other, associated information. One strategy, therefore, is to take children out of the classroom atmosphere, for example, to visit experts in various fields. This approach has the added advantage of making learning fun; studies show that understanding is improved considerably when positive emotions are involved. Children will later remember what they learned because the special setting or interesting person will stick in their head. In addition, they will observe how to interact constructively with others and see the joy people feel in sharing knowledge.
Adults can find opportunities to influence a child’s creative thinking simply by taking advantage of opportunities based on what a child is interested in at a given moment. For example, Manny, a four-year-old, once asked his babysitter on a trip to the store: “Who sits inside the traffic light and makes it turn red?” Amy, the 19-year-old sitter, replied spontaneously: “I don’t know. Should we take a closer look?” She pulled over and had the boy wrap his arms around the light pole, so he could get a feel for its size. “There isn’t room for anybody inside,” Manny concluded. “Then how does it work?” Amy told Manny that once they were home they could find out.
After returning, Amy had Manny paint a picture of the crosswalk as a bird would see it from above. Meanwhile she logged on to the Internet to find out more about traffic lights and showed Manny a few pages about how they work and how they are repaired. The next day Amy called the city’s transportation department while Manny stood next to the phone, to ask if anyone could perhaps show them around the repair shop. The officials agreed, and Amy and Manny had a short but educational visit.
Above all else, Manny learned through Amy’s actions that it is fun to discover things and that friendly adults are willing to share interesting information. Such experts are everywhere: a mechanic at a garage who knows about engines or a tailor who does alterations and knows about applied geometry—cutting cloth in patterns that can be sewn together into square corners.
Mental Gym Class
Making visits to experts or inviting them to schools and daycare centers is one means of showing kids that there are many ways, beyond books, to learn. That, in turn, encourages creative thinking.
Teachers and parents can enrich a child’s day with simple but offbeat perspectives, too, which do not require new lesson plans or expensive purchases. They can present math problems during circuit training in a gym class or at a park, or play motion games during math class, or translate the rules for classroom or household behavior into French.
To learn how a lever works, kids can put a broomstick under their arms (against their chest) and experience firsthand how the force of weights hung on either end affects their own bodies. A visit to a fitness center followed by some study of the various exercise machines will make the principle of counterweights clear.
Or let kids act like machines. Have Lisa pick up stone after stone, using the same motion each time, and pass each stone to Megan. She in turn gives it to Alex, Colin and Ben, who finally hands it to Laura, who dumps it into a bucket half full of water. After 15 or 20 stones, the water will crown and then overflow.
What have the kids learned? That a machine works best at a regular rhythm, that every cause has its effect, and that water creates a tiny meniscus at the top of a bucket because the water molecules stick to one another. (Perhaps the last point would require some adult explanation.)
Here we have engineering, physics, chemistry and physical education. If, later in life, Lisa and her friends hear about automation or surface tension, they will think back to their delightful human machine.
Outside-the-box thinking can be difficult to achieve in adulthood, because often it has been driven out of us over the course of our education and professional experience. Children, however, begin with a clean slate, so teachers and parents ought to challenge themselves to help them discover unusual paths. Boys and girls who grow up with this exposure will grasp new material better, retain their creativity and be ready to make the intuitive leaps that lead to great new ideas.
The Man inside the Traffic Light
During learning, our brains process information stored in the so-called cognitive maps of the cerebral cortex. These associations among neurons are very flexible, as psychologist Martha Farah of the University of Michigan at Ann Arbor demonstrated a decade ago. Farah studied how the brains of Canadian postal workers recognize letters and numbers. Normally, different regions of the cortex handle letters and numbers. But Canadian postal codes consist of a mix of these symbols, such as H3A 1Y2 in Montreal. Sure enough, postal workers who have sorted mail for years process letters and numbers together in a single cognitive map.
The same plasticity is used when reaching outside the box. In cognitive maps, learned information is always connected with other, associated information. One strategy, therefore, is to take children out of the classroom atmosphere, for example, to visit experts in various fields. This approach has the added advantage of making learning fun; studies show that understanding is improved considerably when positive emotions are involved. Children will later remember what they learned because the special setting or interesting person will stick in their head. In addition, they will observe how to interact constructively with others and see the joy people feel in sharing knowledge.
Adults can find opportunities to influence a child’s creative thinking simply by taking advantage of opportunities based on what a child is interested in at a given moment. For example, Manny, a four-year-old, once asked his babysitter on a trip to the store: “Who sits inside the traffic light and makes it turn red?” Amy, the 19-year-old sitter, replied spontaneously: “I don’t know. Should we take a closer look?” She pulled over and had the boy wrap his arms around the light pole, so he could get a feel for its size. “There isn’t room for anybody inside,” Manny concluded. “Then how does it work?” Amy told Manny that once they were home they could find out.
After returning, Amy had Manny paint a picture of the crosswalk as a bird would see it from above. Meanwhile she logged on to the Internet to find out more about traffic lights and showed Manny a few pages about how they work and how they are repaired. The next day Amy called the city’s transportation department while Manny stood next to the phone, to ask if anyone could perhaps show them around the repair shop. The officials agreed, and Amy and Manny had a short but educational visit.
Above all else, Manny learned through Amy’s actions that it is fun to discover things and that friendly adults are willing to share interesting information. Such experts are everywhere: a mechanic at a garage who knows about engines or a tailor who does alterations and knows about applied geometry—cutting cloth in patterns that can be sewn together into square corners.
Mental Gym Class
Making visits to experts or inviting them to schools and daycare centers is one means of showing kids that there are many ways, beyond books, to learn. That, in turn, encourages creative thinking.
Teachers and parents can enrich a child’s day with simple but offbeat perspectives, too, which do not require new lesson plans or expensive purchases. They can present math problems during circuit training in a gym class or at a park, or play motion games during math class, or translate the rules for classroom or household behavior into French.
To learn how a lever works, kids can put a broomstick under their arms (against their chest) and experience firsthand how the force of weights hung on either end affects their own bodies. A visit to a fitness center followed by some study of the various exercise machines will make the principle of counterweights clear.
Or let kids act like machines. Have Lisa pick up stone after stone, using the same motion each time, and pass each stone to Megan. She in turn gives it to Alex, Colin and Ben, who finally hands it to Laura, who dumps it into a bucket half full of water. After 15 or 20 stones, the water will crown and then overflow.
What have the kids learned? That a machine works best at a regular rhythm, that every cause has its effect, and that water creates a tiny meniscus at the top of a bucket because the water molecules stick to one another. (Perhaps the last point would require some adult explanation.)
Here we have engineering, physics, chemistry and physical education. If, later in life, Lisa and her friends hear about automation or surface tension, they will think back to their delightful human machine.
