Diverge!

I had a professor, years ago, tell me that one mark of intelligence was the use of tools other than the way they were intended to be used. I thought that definition would show up in other places in my life, but it hasn't. So here I share it with all of you. Try not to say "That's not what that's for" too quickly—your child might be about to do something quite intelligent.

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Piaget wrote:

"If you want to be creative, stay in part a child, with the creativity and invention that characterizes children before they are deformed by adult society."

—Piaget, quoted by Deb Lewis
in "Unguided Discovery"

SandraDodd.com/deblewis/discovery
photo by Andrea Taylor

Let's go see!

Explore the normal.

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SandraDodd.com/deblewis/discovery
photo by Sandra Dodd

Exploring

Deb Lewis wrote:

The idea of unguided discovery in a school setting isn't anything like the kind of discoveries unschooling kids make. There is a difference between a teacher handing a kid a pulley and telling him to discover what it does and write a paper about it and a kid finding an interesting object and messing with it because it sparked his curiosity. A lot of what my son has learned he's learned in a way that might be called unguided discovery, but it didn't look much like the model in the article, and it didn't happen in a vacuum.

—Deb Lewis

SandraDodd.com/deblewis/discovery
photo by Sandra Dodd

Unguided Discovery

Deb Lewis, on the idea of Unguided Discovery, wrote:

"My son has experienced a lot of wonderful learning through discovery and knows how to find instruction if that's what he wants. I have a wild idea that doing what he wants to do is more important than doing what science educators would like him to do. I don't think all innovators and leaders have to come from the molded and stamped process that produced a previous innovator. I think new understanding often comes from fresh and fearless approaches to discovery. So, while some people are working to prove Piaget wrong, I think he had a good idea when he said, 'If you want to be creative, stay in part a child, with the creativity and invention that characterizes children before they are deformed by adult society.'"

SandraDodd.com/deblewis/discovery
photo by Sandra Dodd, of a steam calliope