Why Constraints Make Us More Creative

And I'm going to start out with a quick story connecting to when I taught middle school.

So it's a while ago, but I want you to imagine me with maybe a little more hair.

I don't know.

I think I actually had pretty similar hair.

But anyway, fewer wrinkles for sure.

So picture this.

We gather together for our team meeting.

Though collectively we love our jobs, we aren't feeling it on a Thursday morning that feels like it should be a Friday.

We've already learned that we won't have a prep period and that our meeting is now compressed to less than half an hour.

We ditch the agenda and I ask, what do you guys want to talk about? Our language arts teacher chimes in.

What are you planning to do the week before winter break? Finals are pulled back a week, and we can't really teach any new content, our math teacher mentions.

I get it.

Lots of the kids will be gone, but that week is going to be rough.

I was thinking maybe some review games.

I don't want to watch holiday movies and stuff like that.

I nod.

I might do a mini project, maybe a Wonder Day project, some maker challenges.

Maybe we could do some debates.

I'm kind of at a loss on what to do, I'm thinking.

Our language arts teacher chimes in, I have an idea, but I'm not sure it will even work.

What if we did an interdisciplinary project? We could combine the standards that we've already taught and we could do it for a full week.

Our science teacher nods at this idea.

It would be a mini project, but we would be expanding it over all the grade levels so that it would feel like a real full project.

It's at this point that we do a rapid fire brainstorm.

It will be a global collaborative project where our students will interact with students in Hong Kong and Columbia.