Be Creative: Experiment
Kids love to learn until it seems like, suddenly, they don’t. Observe any kid under eight engaged in endless imagination, experimentation, and questioning, leading to learning. They learn a new word or skill almost daily, but why does it stop?
Research shows that kids’ love for learning tends to drop off in third grade. Why?
Grades.
Grades become more and more of a focus as students progress. Third grade is often when standardized tests begin as their experience pivots from being driven by play and interest, internal motivation, to grades and correct answers, external motivation, and the desire to learn diminish.
- What does this mean for you?
- What does it mean for your kids or your students if you’re a teacher?
All hope isn’t lost. We can relearn how to love learning. In school, as the focus shifts to earning good grades, this introduces the fear of failure, which makes many stop experimenting and squash curiosity; instead, the focus is on finding the correct answer.
Experimentation
A crucial part of embracing a learning mindset is through experimentation. Experiments indicate that we need to figure out the correct answer, or even if there is one, we’re experimenting to see what we can learn or discover.
Experiments spark curiosity, as any reasonable investigation will lead to a list of new questions, ideas, techniques, or processes to explore. Bring more experimentation into your life, and you’ll start to see a love for learning emerge.
100 Hours in 18 mins a day
The 100-hour rule tells us that if we spend 18 minutes a day, every day for one year (18X365=100), we’ll be better at what we focus on than 95% of the other people in the world.
What do you want to get better at in the next year? What experiments can you run to help you enjoy learning?
One of the hardest things to do is to start, and the next hardest is to keep going when things don’t seem to be working.
In my creative practice and time spent working with students, we all get stuck sometimes and feel like we’ll never have another idea. You can sit and suffer in a creative block or experiment. In most creative block, it can be hard to even come up with an experiment, and that’s where experimentation notecards come into play.
Grab the ones I’ve made for you, or create your own. Next time you feel stuck or need to bring more joy into your work, grab a card, do an experiment, document, reflect, and keep learning.