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9/11/2008

When the principal says Play and Fun are important, I listen ...


Last Thursday was 'Meet the Teacher” night at my daughters new school. A welcome opportunity to meet the principal, learn about new academic initiatives and find out more about the teacher and the expectations for her class. During the first 30 minutes the principal shared with us the school's philosophy and approach for helping to prepare our children for the future and when she got to the slide about the aptitudes that were necessary for 21st century learners, I could have kicked myself for gravitating to back of the cafeteria to find an open seat.

At 70+ feet, I know the photo quality from my BB is limited. But if you look carefully you'll see that “Play and Fun” is listed near the bottom and I loved the explanation that Ms. ABC shared when she got to this point on slide. She said that how too play and make learning experiences fun are important skills for our children's future and learning early how to continually to continually experiment and tinker with both ideas and things will provide a huge advantage, especially within a world that is changing more rapidly every day.

Anyone who knows me, also knows that notion of encouraging “play” is one of personal themes ( if you can say that a person has themes )*. In fact, I think it's echoed in nearly every talk that I give. So naturally you can see why I'm sharing this image with you, even though nearly half of it is readable. :)

In case you're having difficulty reading what the other essential aptitudes are for 21st century are, here's the list:

  • Design and create
  • Communicate
  • Symphony ... ie, the ability to see the big picture
  • Empathy ... the ability to read emotions and handle relationships
  • Play and fun
  • Meaning ... relevance (ie the ability to make connections)

How do we foster these in libraries? As both a mom and administrator (currently helping my library do some 20/20 vision planning for the future), that's what has me thinking ...

On a related note, I also smiled a lot when I translated the byline on this recently published dutch interview with me. “Sta jezelf en anderen toe om te spelen” = Give yourself and others permission to play. See, it is a kind of personal theme of mine... even in the Netherlands :)

PS: Thanks Rob for sending the link. :)

1 comment:

Julie Carney said...

I just wanted to leave you a little note to let you know that I am really enjoying reading your blog. This post especially caught my attention as I also believe that having fun while you learn is important. I am working on developing a blog for NFIB's Young Entrepreneur Foundation and plan to use some of the ideas your posts are giving me for the blog.

Thanks,
Julie Carney
http://youngentrepreneurfoundation.wordpress.com/