The house /school is coming...but in the meantime

I tried to download / upload (which ever way it is meant to be) the picture of the house/school with 9 beautifully colored in bricks but it kept telling me there was an error. I don't know if I am the error or if the blog is but anyway, I have tech guru - Joanna on the case. It is coming soon and really is worth the wait.

In the meantime I have been meaning to share this quotation with you for a long time. I have been reading a lot of books about child-centered learning in a bid to think about what our school's educational philosophy will be. I stumbled across this which really struck a cord with me:
Select the child who appears the most ingenious in the making...of toys,
[within the context of a classroom] present him with adequate tools and
lumber, give him a simple plan which must, however, be adhered to until
completion, and usually his ingenuity gives way to a disheartening dullness.
Poor children usually do not have this kind of opportunity, and it is notorious
that poor children make themselves the best playthings. They have to make
them out of scraps, and the scraps constitute variety. They are Eolithic
craftsmen; it is not only that Eolithic craftsmanship can get along without
uniform material and plans – it is precisely the non-uniformity of scraps and

the absence of set plans which form the circumstances for its best development.’

Quotation taken from Hans Otto Storm “Eolithism and Design” Colorado Quarterly, Winter 1953, cited in 'The Logic of Action' by Frances Hodgeman

In Uganda, as you walk through the villages and towns you will see children pulling their own homemade cars - made from scraps they have found disgarded on the streets. These cars are often formed from wire, sticks, soles of broken shoes and so on. They really are innovative - no two are the same. Yet, I have rarely seen this level of creativity in the schools that I have been to. It seems that schools frequently work at promoting uniformity at the expense of innovation. As I mull over these issues I wonder how we can make the 'SEEDS' school a place of real growth in which we celebrate that no two creations look the same!