About a year ago, in the midst of a number of hallway conversations related to Ken Robinson, Andy Warhol’s factory, talent shows and theatre troops, the idea for the Putman Creative Labs was born. The driving question was, how can we leverage, honour, and encourage the creative capacities of our students?
The Creative Labs project began by simply opening up our library one noon hour a week with an invitation to students to “come in and use our equipment to create podcasts, movies, posters…anything you like!” The only rule was that students couldn’t use the time to work on their homework or class related activities.
Today, the Creative Labs runs five days a week. Here’s a video I shared with the school community to give them a glimpse of the lab:
Take care,
Brent
WICKED BRENT! I love this idea! I loved what you said at the end about the ideas, projects that don’t necessarily “go anywhere”. Too often thinking about “where” an idea is going inhibits, I think, our ability to let our ideas flow, to change, to grow, to shrink, to mix with other ideas…..and I agree that this is an excellent learning experience in and of itself. Looking at the process rather than the end goal. End goals are great, but if you don’t let people marinate in the process, I don’t know that the end goal becomes all it can (or can’t) be. Love it, love it, love it. Thanks for sharing.