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This post is inspired by Everyartist Live!, a national, collaborative art event with the goal of engaging a million elementary school children on November 21, 2013 - the largest art event in history. Want to get involved? Join the effort to show that creativity matters. Sign up at http://everyartist.me November 21 will mark the largest art project in history (we hope.) Here's how you and your students can join in.  Creativity for kids: will it keep kids healthy? Recently, I came across a book that listed the “12 apostles of ill health.” 1 I was stunned to see that one was “a lack of creativity.” How can lack of creativity lead to ill health? Is this true? Think for a moment… it seems like the faster the arts and music have been removed from schools, the higher the drop out rate has escalated. Students are disenchanted and disengaged as they've had paint brushes replaced by pencils as they figure math problems instead of drawing figures on a page. Join th...

Image by FaceMePLS via Flickr “I used to think that anyone doing anything weird was weird. I suddenly realized that anyone doing anything weird wasn’t weird at all, and it was the people saying they were weird that were weird.” Paul McCartney What makes you, you? What makes normal, normal? What if "normal" just another word for boring?  I love Lisa Durff ’s cat in the hat and the funny avatars of some people. There are those who love virtual worlds and others who just love to banter on Twitter . We all bring something different to the table. My Dad has always told me about criticism that the only people who are criticized are those who are actually doing something. He’ll say to me,  “Hey, you’ve arrived. If someone thinks you’re worth taking the time time criticize then you’re doing something that someone has noticed. Don't be so upset.”  Daddy, when will I really listen? The only consistent  thing you and I have in common between this...

Creativity is Declining? Hat tip to my dear friend Maggie Tsai , cofounder of Diigo for pointing me to Newsweek's article on the creativity crisis .   For the first time in history, American creativity is declining. " The correlation to lifetime creative accomplishment was more than three times stronger for childhood creativity than childhood IQ ." Read the article . Share it in your groups and discuss. I haven't slogged through everything, but will say that -- if success is so highly correlated with creativity, why aren't we looking at creativity? Why aren't we encouraging it? Does your school allow invention? Creation? I thank goodness for attending a high school ( Westwood ) and college ( Georgia Tech ) that pushed me to invent and create and try things and demonstrate. In high school, they let us on the student government pick a new color scheme for the gym, paint it, and name it after our favorite headmaster! (Graham Lowe) They let us plan as ...