Last Wednesday I shared with you the first two thinking tools: Observing and Imaging, from the book Sparks of Genius: The 13 Thinking Tools of the World’s Most Creative People.
I’ve found these tools fascinating and think that introducing them to my kids will be an invaluable resource for them to develop the important skills of creativity, innovation and problem-solving.
Today, I’ll summarize the next three thinking tools, Abstracting, Analogizing, & Recognizing Patterns, give you some tips for activities you might want to try out and give you some recommended resources for practicing the tools.
I’d love to hear your thoughts on this series, on the tools themselves, and how your family uses these tools.
Thinking Tool #3 Abstracting
Summary: The book sums up abstracting perfectly. “Abstracting is a process beginning with reality and using some tool to pare away the excess to reveal a critical, often surprising, essence.” It’s stripping something down, whether it’s music, a science principal, dance, writing, art, or history, to its core meaning.
This is what poetry is to writing, what a rhythm is to music, what color is to art and what a movement is to dance. It’s a great way to learn how to discriminate, to think about what is truly important in whatever it is you’re doing, looking at or listening to.
Abstractions bring out new and multiple meanings in something. It shows hidden connections between things. And whenever we can find connections between multiple things, it strengthens and deepens our learning of them.
Favorite quote from the book: “You are looking, Picasso admonishes us, but you are not seeing. Don’t just look- think! Find the surprising properties hidden behind the obvious ones. See with your mind, not your eyes!”
To really look at something, to take time to dissect it and view it from many different angles takes time. When we rush our children from topic to topic and activity to activity, we never give them the opportunity to make those connections and abstractions.
Tips:
– Play a familiar piece of music. What patterns can you make out? What cords are repeated over and over again? If the song has lyrics, talk about why the musician might have made his or her choice of notes? Would the song have the same affect if it was played a different way?
– Read a poem with someone else. Have each person write down one word to describe that poem. Discuss why you chose that word.
– When you’re out in nature, and if you like to draw, choose one thing to look at, maybe a bird, flower or tree, and pick one part of that thing to focus on. Focus on the part of the object or animal that, for you, best showcases why it is unique. Then draw that part in as much detail as possible.
Resources:
– What’s the Big Idea? Activities and Adventures in Abstract Art
– Andy Goldsworthy: A Collaboration with Nature
– “Jekyll & Hyde” Modern Abstract Dance Solo – clip from YouTube
Thinking Tool #4 Analogizing
Summary: An analogy is the relationship or function that is similar between two seemingly different things. You can form an analogy between a house and a nest. We understand that they are both types of homes. On the surface they are very different things, but it’s their function that makes them analogous to each other.
Analogies also help us to understand new ideas we encounter. I think the more concrete experiences and opportunities that we present to our kids, the more they will be able to make analogies to new, abstract ideas they encounter. They will have a deeper understanding of the new ideas than if they had nothing concrete to compare them to.
Pretend play is often not valued as real learning, especially in schools. But it really is a high form of analogy. When children take sticks and turn them into swords, or turn leaves and rocks into carpets and tables for a doll’s house, they are recognizing similar functions and relationships between those objects.
They don’t need to be taught this either. This creative thinking tool is natural. It’s something most of us are born with. We just need to give our kids a variety of environments and objects they can use to strengthen this skill. It’s a skill that can be strengthened with lots of time and experience. It’s our job to give our children that time.
The book also talks about the dangers of children only playing with toys that are “realistic.” I must say that while we have some toys like this…Jared loves his figures….my kids play much more with everyday objects in the house that they pretend are other things. Realistic toys can be fun and I’d never tell my kids not to play with them, but I think if you provide a lot of open-ended types of toys, kids will naturally play with them in dozens of different ways.
My favorite quote from the book: “Such prefabricated experiences stunt the poetic and artistic imagination. They also crimp the inventive mind, for the child who never has to make or make do will never perceive the possibilities of materials or the purposes in objects originally designed for some other use. Only when we can see things for what they might be and not just for what they are can be begin to use them in novel ways.”
Tips:
– Play the How Many Uses Game. Gather together about ten to fifteen objects around the house. Put them in a bag or box. Then take one out at a time. Set a time for three minutes and have each person write down as many ways to use the object they can think of.
– Read three short stories, picture books, or poems. See if you can find at least ten different ways the writings could relate to each other.
Resources:
– The Pop-Up Book of M.C. Escher
– The Private Eye: Looking/Thinking by Analogy
Thinking Tool #5 Recognizing Patterns
Summary: From the book: “From patterns we recognize general principles of perception and action and base our expectations on those patterns. Then we try to fit new observations and experiences into those expectations. Discovery occurs when, willy-nilly, something about our observations and experiences forces us to make another pattern.”
When we observe patterns and form new patterns, we learn to see things in new ways. We start to form connections between things and understand them in deeper ways.
Recognizing patterns is especially important in problem solving. The more you’re familiar with patterns in whatever area you’re working in, the easier it will be to know which patterns will help to solve the problem.
One easy way to see this is in math. Schools turn math into mechanical, route memorization. The main reason why kids have a hard time solving real life number problems is because they haven’t had enough experience recognizing number patterns and knowing which patterns will help solve the problem.
Favorite quote from the book: “Recognizing patterns sometimes requires a certain amount of tolerance for dawdling and play.”
Tips:
– Play some well known games together that rely on pattern recognition: chess, checkers, jigsaw puzzles.
– Lay in the grass and find patterns in the clouds
– Read different types of poems and try to replicate those same patterns in a poem of your own.
Resources:
– A High Wind in Jamaica – a story about a little girl kidnapped by pirates who amuses herself by finding shapes and faces in the woodwork of her cabin.
– The movie Lorenzo’s Oil – Rated PG-13 – It’s the true story about the Odone family at their quest to find a cure or their son’s mysterious disease. Pattern recognition plays a major part in the movie
Photo Credit: fdecomite
In what ways to you play with abstracting, analogizing and finding patterns in your family? Do you have any resources you can share?