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If You’re The 1st Responder To New Ideas, You Have A Critical Job
You only get a moment — just after the question is asked, when the air around us is charged with raw curiosity (packaged and delivered in the usual form), to utter a response.
You get a moment to choose.
Your decision influences the dynamic of talk and wonder, whether you like it or not.
The pocket-sized hidden curriculum encourages or dampens enthusiasm-worse still, it spirals into self-preservation.
Questions litter the learning space in the primary and early years, often strewn around quite randomly.
I was once asked, If a pea had a brain, how big would it be?
Mourn Those Precious Little Sparks
These precious sparks exist momentarily, but the impact of our response to questions has an extended half-life.
Each of us is born with two contradictory sets of instructions: a conservative tendency, made up of instincts for self-preservation, self-aggrandisement, and saving energy, and an expansive tendency made up of instincts for exploring, for enjoying novelty and risk. We need both. But whereas the first tendency requires little encouragement, the second can wilt if it is not cultivated.
Creativity: Flow and the Psychology of Discovery…
