Photo: Rumolay
A mathematical think dive into a pile of colourful autumn leaves.
What if there was a leaf counting machine?
A leaf-powered machine that could count the leaves in a rotting piles of autumn leaves.
Why would you like to count the number of leaves in a pile?
Who would think of such an idea?
Maths problems are often, well, not exactly boring but not exactly exciting either. What sort of things would a young child like to count? Would a child learn something even if there is no real answer to a maths problem?
Exploring possibilities is important and yet the education system often does exactly the opposite. The focus is on problems where there are few exciting possibilities to explore. The education system slowly transform every mind to think the same.
There are many educators who stress the importance of creativity, yet there is often a lack of ideas that help adults and teachers to inspire children to continue to ask wonderful questions and to support them to explore these questions. Often the focus is on the answer of a question rather than on the creative thinking journey.
Creativity begins with curiosity about the world. Mixing the curiosity it with imagination and knowledge is not only tremendously fun it is also a powerful learning experience.
