Creativity and Play

I've been spending a great deal of time lately reading and learning about creativity and play.  More specifically - how we can start to use those ideas in our classrooms to create critical thinkers and problem solvers.  This fantastic TED talk with Tim Brown led me to think about writing and creativity.  Some connections I made:

• After the first activity related to drawing their neighbor, one could hear a lot of "I'm sorry" in the audience.  Tim Brown made the point that as we become adults, we are much more concerned about judgment by our peers and less likely to share our ideas.  This is so true with writing - so how do we counter that?
• The 30 circles test reminded me a great deal of Not A Box and Not A Stick - two of my favorite mentor texts.  It also reminded me that much of the purpose behind Writer's Notebooks is to generate a large quantity of ideas that we can draw from for writing.
• "Sometimes we need new rules to help break the old norms and rules that stifle the creative process."  What new rules could we create for writing? 

Spend 30 minutes watching - it is worth it!! And tell me what you think.