Here are some of the things that we’re reading and watching now….    

Creativity

We believe that creativity is essential to future success and happiness.  It’s important to teach kids how to develop and use their creativity  

• Newsweek Magazine's “The Creativity Crisis”, Po Bronson and Ashley Merryman, Newsweek Magazine, July 19, 2010 “All around us are matters of national and international importance that are crying out for creative solutions….  Such solutions emerge from a healthy marketplace of ideas, sustained by a populace constantly contributing original ideas and receptive to the ideas of others.” 
• Ted Talks:  “Sir Ken Robinson makes an entertaining and profoundly moving case for creating an education system that nurtures (rather than undermines) creativity.”     
• Sir Ken Robinson on Divergent Thinking - wonderfully creative animation!

Education

• Brain Rules, by John Medina
• US Chamber of Commerce Report, Why Business Should Support Early Childhood Education, Sept. 2010
• Ted Talk:  “Today's math curriculum is teaching students to expect -- and excel at -- paint-by-numbers classwork, robbing kids of a skill more important than solving problems: formulating them. At TEDxNYED, Dan Meyer shows classroom-tested math exercises that prompt students to stop and think.”
• Edutopia
• Want to Get Your Kids into College?  Let Them Play.  by Erika Christakis and Nicholas Christakis, CNN 12/29/10. 
• Sec. Arnie Duncan talks about the importance of Early Childhood Education.

The Importance of Play

• 11 Surprising Benefits of Play, Dr. Michele Borba, 2/1/11
• "Play:  How it Shapes the Brain, Opens the Imagination, and Invigorates the Soul", by Stuart Brown, M.D.
• The Strong Museum of Play  
• The National Institute of Play
• Best Workout for the Brain may be Play, by Eric Heiden, 1/25/11