After three years of inspiring students’ interest in learning, Ignite Creative Learning Studio is transforming to focus on some new ideas.

Ignite has been a life-changing experience for kids, families, and all of us!

Over 90 classes have opened young minds to creative thinking, connecting personally with children’s interests, innate creativity, and eagerness to take learning to its greatest depths.  History came alive through games and re-enactments, creative writing provided a means of productive self-expression, and tinkering resulted in creation.  Through our unique and introspective classes, we have watched our children expand their creative thinking and problem solving skills, with smiles on their faces as they discovered their individual talents and personalities.

 Looking forward, we are focusing on new ideas and collaborations that will allow us to better benefit students in Ojai and beyond.  The world of education is evolving quickly and it is important for us to adapt these concepts for future needs and to reach additional students.  As the idea of Ignite has expanded into a more robust concept, this idea needed a new name . . .

Welcome to Sparkitivity!  

As an evolution of Ignite, we have formed Sparkitivity to embrace a broader range of activity in curriculum development, training, speaking, and writing. Teachers and families around the country are drawn to the desire to spark their children’s learning. While we will not hold classes in Ojai this fall, we will keep you updated on our activities and continue to send you resources through our Sparkitivity emails, containing news of community collaborations, opportunities for bright and creative kids, and any surprises we are hosting around town.  Stay tuned for more updates.

Question:

What does this playdough circuit and your child have in common?

Answer:

They both light up at Ignite!

Keep learning alive this summer and

enroll in Summer Sparks!

Many thinkers, business leaders, and progressive educators are now voicing a growing issue: lack of problem solving ability and creativity thinking skills demonstrated by our nation’s college graduates.  In Sir Ken’s words, from his newest book Out of Our Minds: Learning to Be Creative, “too few graduates have what business needs.  More complex economies demand more sophisticated talent with global acumen, knowledge of different cultures, technological literacy, entrepreneurial skills, and the ability to manage increasingly complex organizations.” (Robinson p. 69)

Thinker after important thinker has essentially the same message:

Thomas Friedman: “Those who have the ability to imagine new services and new opportunities and new ways to recruit work . . .are the new Untouchables.  Those with the imagination to invent smarter ways to do old jobs, energy-saving ways to provide new services, new ways to attract old customers or new ways to combine existing technologies will thrive.” (In Robinson, 2012)

Linda Naiman, an internationally-known industry leader in creativity in business, postulates, “Winners [will be] designers, inventors, counselors, ethnographers, social psychologists, and other right-brain folks, while lawyers, engineers, accountants, and other left-brainers will see their jobs migrate to Asia” (Naiman, 2010).

Daniel Pink, author of A Whole New Mind, argues that left-brain linear, analytical computer-like thinking is being replaced by right-brain empathy, inventiveness, and understanding as skills most needed by business  (Pink, 2006).

The question remains: What are we, as parents, teachers, and students, going to do about this blatant lack of talent?  At Ignite we are focused every day on developing opportunities for students to discover new passions and to transfer their inspiration into the hard and fast skills of creative thinking, problem solving, and analysis.  This can be done through any subject, from creative writing to improv to the study of the Civil War!  The point is that students must be engaged, doing work and participating in projects and activities that stimulate their minds to a higher level and greater depth of thinking.  Keep looking for opportunities so that your child’s learning does not stagnate, and we will be back soon with a series of posts on the nuts and bolts of creativity.

Have you read this book?  Little Bets by Peter Sims came out this year by Simon and Schuster. Sims studied highly creative people and companies to learn about their innovation and thinking processes, people such as Steve Jobs, Frank Gehry, and Chris Rock, and companies like Pixar. While the book is helpful for business people and entrepreneurs, it is one that has a direct application to education, especially given the fact that Sims points out repeatedly: today’s children need to be prepared to be tomorrow’s problem solvers and innovators.   This book will help parents in their own endeavors, and also aid them in thinking more deeply about their children’s education.

In a chapter entitled “Questions are the New Answers,” Sims asks, “What is the purpose of education?  Is it to convey knowledge, as the current system is weighted, or is it to inspire and nurture an ability to constantly learn?”  This is after citing a study by researchers Gregersen and Dyer in The Innovator’s DNA in which they observed, “If you look at four-year-olds, they are constantly asking questions and wondering how things work.  But by the time they are six and a half years old they stop asking questions because they quickly learn that teachers value the right answers more than provocative questions” (Sims, 114-115).

Sims addresses perfectionism, and shows that “our creative capacities won’t be liberated unless we let go of the subconscious need to always be perfect or have the immediate answer” (Sims, 49).

He comments on the importance of an environment replete with humor and flexibility: “Creating an atmosphere that allows for playfulness and improvisation is one of the most effective ways to inspire the experimentation that leads to the best ideas and insights” (Sims, 65).

All in all, we found Sims’ book to be a positive influence in helping to continue to shape the atmosphere and purpose of Ignite.  We also found it useful on a personal level, helping us to realize that making “little bets” – trying new things, making small investments in good, original ideas with the understanding that they may fail or develop into different ideas altogether – is a positive, healthy, and innovative path to take as individuals and as members of a forward-thinking organization.

Have you ever wondered why bright children sometimes perform poorly in school?  The notion of gifted underachievement has been going on for centuries.  Just think of Albert Einstein, whose teachers thought him to be “slow,” and Thomas Edison who was told he was too stupid to learn.   If you have a child whose abilities are not reflected in his or her school work and performance, you may be interested in looking at these links.  There is a lot of info out there, but experience has shown us that a most effective antidote is to provide the child access to another totally different learning environment where teachers are sure to connect the child’s individual strengths to academic work, thus demonstrating to the student how his own strengths are valuable and valid in an educational setting.

Take for example the common problem of the middle school English class failure. Often, students who fail English class in middle school are, in fact, effective and eager creative writers.  Given the opportunity to write creatively in an alternative and supportive setting, the teacher can develop their skills as creative writers first, and then connect these skills to other forms of  critical reading and writing such as the essay.  This approach helps develop academic self-efficacy, or the belief that one is equipped to handle and overcome challenges.

Did you know?

“Robert Frost dropped out of Dartmouth College and Harvard University and failed as both a teacher and a farmer.”  (From Famous Failures by Joey Green (Lunatic, 2007))

The fact is that once a teacher understands how to integrate creative thinking opportunities in the classroom, any and every activity can include interesting, interactive, problem solving opportunities that students find relevant and exciting, opportunities that further engage them in the learning process.  ”But, alas,” you may say, “We are bound by state standards and tests and district curriculum.”  We say, take those state standards, that curriculum, and the concepts that will be tested, and design your classroom around learning experiences with which students can connect.  They need to be able to sink their brains into what they are learning; otherwise education becomes memorization, which is easily lost.

Integrating creativity in education helps students solidify their knowledge, makes them realize that they do indeed enjoy learning, and actually improves test scores since students actually connect with concepts rather than just memorizing them on a basic level.   Here’s an example.  A couple of years ago in a Math Games and Problem Solving class at Ignite, students were playing a version of battleship as part of a lesson on probability, graphing, and strategy.  The game board was graph paper with an x and y axis, and students had to plot their ships’ coordinates.

A few weeks later, one of the students arrived at class glowing.  ”We took our state test, and I was the only one in my class that knew how to answer the problems on coordinates because we had played battleship at Ignite!” she exclaimed.  This was a happy but secondary result to the work with battleship that day.  Our goals had been broader than preparing students for a test; we were asking them to learn how to think with a high-interest approach, and this produced an important ripple effect.

As Sir Ken said in the article, tests have become “the culture of education, the purpose of it, rather than a support for it.”  Solid educational strategies that facilitate learning and thinking on a deep level, that expose students to a wide variety of subject matter, should be the basis of education. Students who experience this rigorous yet inspiring type of learning tend to perform higher on tests because they know how to solve problems and think things through, not because they have memorized content.

So far this week, there has been:

paperfolding/cutting/math magic in Advanced Origami and Paper Arts (grades 3-6);

delving into stories and learning to purchase supplies with real money to create inventions with our 4, 5, and 6-year-olds in Take-it-Apart;

exploring children’s literature and beginning to write our own books to be published in Picture Book Project (grades 3-6);

luscious writing inspired by art in Creative Writer’s Workshop (grades 5-8);

studying gastropoda, simulating bug behavior, and creating our own insects in Science Explorations (grades 1 and 2);

and making electric circuits out of grapefruit and powering lightbulbs with them in Electric Science (grades 2-3) and Advanced Electric Science (grades 4-6),

and Future Problem Solvers (grades 4-6) have tackled big world issues in preparation for their competition.

Yet to come on Friday are Clay Animation and Advanced Stop Motion Animation (grades 3 and up).

Each of these classes have been replete with inspiration on the part of teachers and students alike. At Ignite, we strive to create meaningful and even life-changing learning experiences that make a difference in the lives of curious, creative, interested students and their families.  If you haven’t already, come join us!

Entrance to Future Exhibit at Museum of Science and Industry, Chicago.

“The simple question “What if . . .” has the power to change our world. Provocative, inspiring and seemingly impossible questions are being asked by today’s scientists, engineers, inventors, and entrepreneurs.

“The thrill of discovery, passion for new ideas and optimism for the future helps these innovators overcome the challenges they face as they take a seemingly crazy idea and bring it to life.

“Believe in the impossible.

“Then make it happen.”

These powerful words arrested my attention as I came upon “Fast Forward: Inventing the Future” at the Museum of Science and Industry in Chicago. Entering the threshold of “Inventing the Future,” I felt immediately at home in the realm of possibility, because this is what I live every day at Ignite.   We are educators asking these questions, and we are constantly searching for answers as we work with students, families, and teachers:

What if learning could always provoke “discovery, passion for new ideas and optimism for the future” on the part of students?

What can we do to ignite, engage, and train the creative minds to nurture the needed problem solvers of the 21st century, our children and students?

Though in a new context, the ideas were so familiar to me I moved eagerly through the  displays, pondering the questions posed around me, such as:

What if your coffee table was a musical instrument?

What if your pizza could be delivered by email?

What if you could speak any foreign language instantly?

What if your car could drive by itself?

What if you could take an elevator into space?

What if you could control a computer with your shadow?

As I shifted my own shadow around to catch virtual butterflies fluttering over the screen in front of me, I realized that the seeming impossible is always within the grasp of those willing to reach for it.  At Ignite, we are making it happen.

Shadow-controlled screen projected with butterflies at Museum of Science and Industry, Chicago.

For a taste of the Inventing the Future at Science and Industry, click here to explore the online exhibit content, and share this with your kids!