Read and React Week 13

Tim Brown:  On Creativity and Play
Brown discusses three types of play in his presentation:
1.  Exploration is when an individual is allowed to play with no limits.  Quantity is more important than quality and no ideas are bad ideas.  Brown discusses the difference between small children's play compared to the play of adults.  Children are not concerned or embarrassed, they just go for it and play.  Adults think too much and are always concerned about how they look. 
2.  Building or construction play is doing hands on exploration.  Creating prototypes is one example Brown talks about.  Using your hands and creating actual objects is a great way to get ideas flowing and conversations going in the right discussion about what a customer wants.
3.  Role Playing is the last type of play he talks about.  Children love to role play, dressing up as a fire fighter or playing mom and baby.  This type of play is important when trying to figure out what kind of service the customers want so many business role play to attempt to get all the details right.

Stuart Brown:  Why play is vital-No matter what your age
Brown discusses the importance of play through a persons life.  He gives many examples of animals at play, however his examples of humans is limited because extensive research is expensive and the funding has not been there for his proposals.  He discusses many types of play, Social, Rough & Tumble, Imaginative (solo), Story telling, Play with no purpose, and Play with objects.

Eliza Petri:  The Role of Artistic Play in Problem Solving
Artistic play has an important role in problem solving.  Children who are given the same task in a classroom, along with a variety of tools and materials will work, experiment and play until they come with with a solution.  She gives the example of the "Princess in the Rain Forest" in her article.  All the students worked on finding a shelter for the princess and working individually and in groups they found a different solution.  Children need to have the opportunity in the classroom to participate in activities that "promote cognitive development" (51). 
Daniel Pink:  Play (from A Whole New Mind)
Pink discusses the importance of play in an adults life.  He discusses the way the Army created a video game to simulate a soldiers life.  The game was a huge hit and they went on to make a sequel.  They developed the game to boost the number of recruits in the Army.  Another idea he discusses is humor and the right side of the brain.  Research explains that the right hemisphere understands and processes the idea of humor.  If it is damage the individual will have a hard time understanding humorous jokes. 

Hetland:  Chapter 11 Learning to Stretch and Explore
Students need to be allowed to experiment and explore all the possibilities of the media before they begin a project.  Too many rules or limitations can inhibit their creativity.  They should be encourage by their teachers to think outside the box, come up with new ways to use a material and have fun with the process.  This chapter discusses the use of clay and how to introduce the clay so the students won't become overwhelmed with the process and all the rules of clay.  The two teacher had separate strategies they used with their group of students.

React:
Students need to be given certain opportunities in the classroom.  When I give my students the choice of a project or have them choose a media, they really struggle.  I want to build the confidence and choice making skills in the art room and I have struggled with this.  I feel that they want me to tell them what to do and I have trouble encouraging them to make decisions.  In the Stretch and Explore chapter I read many good ideas to use when working with clay.  Students want to do it once and leave it even if it is not correct.  I will defiantly incorporate some of these ideas next year when we get to our clay unit.