Boredom: a state of mind

I have been reading George Couros's post here and I felt I should write something about this. Creativity or what Maslow (1943) calls self-actualization is the highest form of human
endevour.

What a powerful video. We really get very unsettled when our kids are bored. Put an Ipod in their hands or a television set in front of them. And watch them slowly transform into zombies. Well this child shows us the power of creativity. Boredom is a state of mind and he chose not to be bored. He seized the opportunity. Though he did not have any customers, he never stopped being excited about his arcade because, to him, it was not about the final product or the money. To him the very act of creating was fun. Creativity needs time.

Observe how the children become creative when we give them more time! So the question we educators need to ask is "How can we encourage our students to be creative?" What if we had one period of the day where they are given free time. In front of them boxes of junk. Let's see what these minds can come up with. I'm sure we will not be dissapointed. We always complain about how hard it is to elicit the action component in our PYP curriculum. All we need to do is to encourage creativity. It can't be explicitly taught.

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