Raising Observant Children: 10 ideas

The Raising Innovators workshop I led on Saturday went really well, and I’m excited to do another new and improved version soon. I did receive some feedback that parents were seeking more ideas for how to apply the principles we discussed. Here is an overview of the topic we discussed, accompanied by a list of ideas:

Robert and Michele Root-Bernstein spent over a decade researching the creative process of scores of creative and innovative individuals and discovered 13 thinking tools that were common across all fields. Saturday I led a workshop in which we discussed 3 of these thinking tools and how to foster them in our children.

The one we discussed the most (and which the Root-Bernsteins—and I—believe is the most important) is observation.

Why the most important? Because it is the lens through which all knowledge is acquired, and you cannot fully use or develop the other thinking tools without honing your powers of observation.

I tend to focus on principles and shy away from telling people how to apply them, and this workshop was no exception—we threw out just a few ideas of how to raise more observant children after exploring the principle of observation at length. But I also understand that it can be helpful to get ideas to start experimenting with. Here are a few simple ideas to help you get started honing your child’s, and your own, observation skills. Inspire your children by doing them yourself, too:

1. Put something together using a manual.

A piece of furniture from IKEA, a LEGO car, a new appliance—let your children look at the illustrations and find the corresponding pieces. If the child is ready, allow her to try to follow the instructions and put the pieces together. Let her make mistakes and keep attempting. Resist the urge to correct immediately or give hints if they get it wrong the first time. Unless they really want a hint, of course, or have no interest in helping with the project; generally children are eager to help with adult work and want to try doing things themselves when given the chance.

2. Start a collection.

When you collect different kinds of things in the same family, you become very good at distinguishing their differentiating characteristics. Rocks tend to look very similar until you start collecting them and looking at them frequently. Don’t limit your collection possibilities to tangible objects. You can start a sound collection: city sounds, nature sounds, bird calls, music, classical music, jazz music. All classical music used to sound similar to me before I studied several composers and their music. Start a texture collection—fabric scraps, bark from different trees, moss, rough and smooth rocks, etc.

3. Slow down.

Allow time for yourself and your children to stop and smell the flowers. Follow a grasshopper, catch a toad, look at the patterns in the tree bark of different trees (or find pictures in it, or feel the different textures of different tree bark, smell it, put it in your mouth and get in touch with your inner baby), watch workers down in the storm drain, a construction project. Take one or two pictures every day of a construction project near your home from the same spot and watch it in time lapse when it’s finished. Children are good at this; we adults have a tendency to hurry them along.

4. Quiet moments & total silence.

Make sure to have plenty of quiet (literal and figurative) moments; our powers of observation weakened when there are distractions. OR have everyone close his or her eyes and remain totally silent. What do you hear? Try doing this in the same place every day for a week. Do you notice more new sounds each time? Try the same exercise focusing on feelings inside your own body–areas of tension and relaxation, cooler and warmer parts of the body, full or empty belly, heart beating, tingles, other sensations or sounds.

5. Savor your food.

Every so often, instead of having a normal conversation at mealtime, I ask the kids what they notice about what they’re eating. They describe the flavors, tastes and textures and how they compliment each other. Do you like crunchy and creamy together? Sweet and salty? Tart and savory? Sometimes I miss enjoying my food because I’m thinking about other things.

6. Blind taste test.

Bake a different brownie (or other) recipe or half recipe once a week for several weeks. Freeze several small squares of each and label so that you know which came from which recipe. Then thaw the brownies and taste and compare blindfolded. Have each person describe textures and tastes. Is one more bitter than the others? Sweeter? Chewier? Softer? Fluffier? Denser? Crumbly or fudgy? Rank them according to preference and guess which came from which recipe.

7. Learn to draw.

Take a class or develop your skills yourself using the Picasso approach: Draw the same simple object from the same perspective over and over again. Before you draw it each time, observe it and write down as many different characteristics as you can. Each time you will think you’ve exhausted your list; but new characteristics will pop out at you each time.

8. Learn photography.

Not quite as effective as learning how to draw, but still very eye-opening.

9. People watch.

Go to a public place and watch people. Watch their facial expressions and mannerisms and try to guess how they’re feeling, if they’re in a hurry, if they’re lost in thought, and anything else you might want to guess about them. Pay attention to the eyebrows, forehead, mouth, jaw, eyes, shoulders, hands.

10. Allow children to discover answers and mistakes.

Passivity is learned. Human beings are born with a drive to learn, grow, and progress. Young children are innately so observant because of this drive—observation is how they take it all in, how they begin to learn about everything so they can grow and progress. When we intervene in the natural process of learning by giving children the answers, or pointing out all their mistakes before they get a chance to do those things themselves, we are doing the observing for them and bypassing the steps they would go through on their own, straight to the end result—without the depth of understanding or excitement and fulfillment that accompanies the lengthier natural process.

Learning—or “learning”—seems to happen so quickly in conventional methods of education because this natural process is bypassed and you arrive straight at the solution so quickly, allowing you to move on to collecting more answers without pausing, in a sort of intellectual academic, mental binge. Don’t be fooled by the speed, rigor, and early ages at which they are learning. Though at first it may seem as though your child is “behind” (or learning too slowly or not enough) when they are going through the natural learning process—asking their own questions and discovering their own answers…observing for themselves instead of learning to rely on someone else to observe for them—there is a strength and depth of knowledge, wisdom, and character growing inside that cannot be measured by a standardized test.

They are mastering the art of how to learn and grow; and when they’ve mastered that, they will have the power to learn and do everything they need to in order to reach their fullest potential.

Play at Work and School

Theodore Roosevelt said, “When you play, play hard; when you work, don’t play at all” –and the sentiment persists today. No fun while working. Just get the job done.

But is it true?

What really happens when you play at work? Or with your work?

Magic.

Pilobolus dance company had hit a wall one hot humid afternoon in 1981. They had been trying to choreograph a new dance for hours and hours in a “steamy rehearsal barn,” but hadn’t made any progress.

Then the rain stopped and the sun came out, coaxing them out of the barn for a much needed break. They stomped in the puddles and mud and climbed on the roof. The stomping quickly turned into dancing—for fun, from the heart, not because they had to—and voila! A new dance took shape, seemingly of its own accord. They gave this dance a fitting name: “Day 2.”

It’s as if it already existed somewhere deep within…or without..and gained a body through their playfulness. I believe it does.

Play gives birth to creativity because it taps into intuition, deep emotion and desires, which are where creative ideas are conceived. Creative ideas cannot be conceived in boredom, frustration or pessimism.

Does our education system tap into our children’s intuition, deep emotion and desires? I believe conventional schools, in general, attempt to do exactly the opposite–disconnect children from their intuition, emotion and desires…at least to a certain extent. It’s incredibly difficult to control and mold a child–let alone a classroom–the way you (or the state) want to, if he is in tune with his own intuition, emotions and desires. You need to make your desires–your one plan and timetable for all of them–the desires of the child as well. And if they don’t comply, you must use external punishments and rewards–excuse me, “consequences”–so at least their behavior complies. And if that doesn’t work, then drugs are justified.

“Don’t listen to your own intuition and desires; they’re not important” is the message, “just listen to me and follow my directions.” There may be a time and a place for that, but children’s lives today are so micro-managed by adults that play and agency–indeed democracy–in education has all but vanished.*

And so we need to create classes in college for engineers that teach them how to be creative because they have lost the ability! And college classes where students take apart mechanical devices and put them back together–something children who are inclined to that field have done on their own throughout history! Until recently, of course.

Bring play back to work and school!

The playful dancer, like those in Pilobolus, asks questions like, “What if we danced below an imaginary ceiling that was only 3 feet above the ground?” or “What if our audience was watching us dance from below, not in front of us? What would that look like?” and through playing around with weird and fun ideas, becomes an innovator…and enjoys a rich and fulfilling life.

And that’s exactly what Pilobolus did–choreograph a dance that was intended to be viewed from below. My family had the opportunity to see this exciting work of art live:

*Think kids today have more freedom than ever? Think again. In a study done by Dr. Robert Epstein, former editor-in-chief of Psychology Today, he discovered that teens under 18 today have fewer freedoms than incarcerated felons, and twice as many restrictions. Here’s an example of a truly playful, democratic school, and studies of its graduates show they thrive in adulthood–Sudbury Valley School in Framingham, Massachusetts: https://www.google.com/#q=sudbury+valley+school

Why You Will Fail to Have a Great Career

One of the most inspiring talks I’ve ever watched.

3 Types of Rule-Breakers

A few days ago I said the basic recipe for becoming a great photographer was:

1. Learn how to see
2. Take thousands of bad pictures (interspersed with some you are pleased with), until you know how to follow conventional photography/artistic rules.
3. Break the rules.

Before you jump to #3 and decide to be the first person to intentionally take pictures with the lens cap on (you rule-breaker, you!), you should know there are three types of rule breakers:

1. Those who do it unknowingly

2. Those who do it recklessly

3. Those who do it with a wise purpose

Famous artists throughout history were famous because they broke the rules of art in their time, not because they created something beautiful. Few people thought the art of Picasso or Dali was beautiful at the time.

By “rules” I really mean convention: a rule, method, or practice established by usage; custom.

Conventions can be practical–like always putting North at the top of the map. You don’t have to, but it makes reading maps a lot easier when they’re all the same.

Here are examples of the three different types of rule-breakers in the map scenario:

1. A young child drawing a map puts North on the bottom.

2. Someone decides to flip the maps upside down or switch the NSEW because they think it would be funny, want to confuse people, or prove that no one can tell them what to do.

3. You are a maker of GPS devices and decide it would actually be more helpful in this situation to have the direction at the top of the screen be whichever direction the driver is facing.

So…why learn to follow rules in the first place?

Learning the rules–how to manipulate your camera settings to yield a perfect exposure, imitating existing photographic technique–gives you greater freedom to control the outcome of your creation.

The ability to follow the rules will give you the power to break them purposefully.

Did I break the rules when I took a picture of a teaspoon? A spill? I’m not sure. But I do think that if a child tipped his cereal bowl, most people would think “great, another mess to clean up,” not “Photo op!”

Famous artists choose a rule to break because it has a purpose that they believe in.

I want you to look more closely at a mundane nuisance, and see something new; something that wasn’t there before.

The Role of Art

At worst, the arts are labeled as frivolous. At best, the arts are valued only in their magical ability to increase standardized test scores.

I’d like to make a crazy manifesto: that the arts are the PINNACLE of human existence, the ultimate in creative human expression; that artistic creation manifests itself in all fields, including mathematics (perhaps especially in mathematics), and is the highest form of expression in all fields. The arts articulate abstract ideas and feelings more concisely and powerfully than any other means of communication. And it is the ability to communicate clearly, wisely and powerfully that deepens and strengthens relationships, which is our greatest joy as humans on this earth.

Here’s an even crazier manifesto: Standardized test scores are not the pinnacle of human existence. Or childhood. They are not a valid measure of intelligence or ability and they do not predict a happy, healthy adulthood. In fact, the only thing standardized test scores are able to predict is…future standardized test scores. (And the only thing GPA measures validly and accurately is how well a child conforms to authority.) Yet here we all are sacrificing the arts–sacrificing childhood itself–at the altar of the Gods of Standardized Tests, who might as well be the Great and Powerful Oz.

I have chosen to make the arts the FOUNDATION of our family’s education by immersing ourselves in them—first to enjoy and understand, then to develop our own ability to express ideas.

To hell with the test scores.