Tony Dyson was the special-effects designer who created the wildly popular robot, R2D2, for the Star Wars films. He died last Friday at the age of 68. He created many other robots and special effects for movies and loved his work.
When asked to define creativity, he said:
“The ability to know to play, to think outside the box, and to apply logic but also imagination.”
When asked by the same young man how to make himself more creative, Dyson said:
“Definitely play more. Have a playful attitude. See the joy in everything you come across and enjoy life by the moment.”
Diane Ravitch's blog 
I suddenly had this vision that our children are being treated as we treat chickens on huge agribusiness farms. Our kids will be squashed into cages and cut up as soon as they’re fat enough. Certainly they aren’t being allowed to play. And their growth has been horribly stunted.
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Yes, it’s the kind of thing that happens when you place efficiency above all else. And that’s what business does.
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I have posted this before but it bears repeating—
TEN QUOTES ABOUT THE IMPORTANCE OF PLAY
[start]
“Play is the work of the child.” – Maria Montessori
“Play is the highest form of research.” – Albert Einstein
“It is a happy talent to know how to play.” – Ralph Waldo Emerson
“Play gives children a chance to practice what they are learning.” – Mr. Rogers
“The playing adult steps sideward into another reality; the playing child advances forward to new stages of mastery.” – Erik H. Erikson
“Children learn as they play. Most importantly, in play children learn how to learn.” – O. Fred Donaldson
“The creation of something new is not accomplished by the intellect but by the play instinct.” – Carl Jung
“We don’t stop playing because we grow old; we grow old because we stop playing.” – George Bernard Shaw
“Do not keep children to their studies by compulsion but by play.” – Plato
“Play is often talked about as if it were a relief from serious learning. But for children play is serious learning. Play is really the work of childhood.” – Fred Rogers
[end]
Link: http://oneperfectdayblog.net/2013/02/21/quotes-about-the-importance-of-play/
😎
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Thanks for reposting the list.
I have an anthology circa 1953 with longer accounts about creativity. from then “famous” creators. Frank Lloyd Wright credited the Froebel gifts for his early attraction to architecture.
Unstructured, semi-structured, and non-competitive play is too rare in the early childhood. Kds are getting tested and pressed to meet “academic” standards. The standardistos, as Susan Ohanian calls them, are intolerant of anything that looks like it is wasting time, off task, imaginative play, an eccentric response, and so on.
One of the most beloved Canadian high school teachers of art history wore period and culture-relavant costumes and engaged students in dramatic reinactments of complex works of art, transforming what is usually a deadly recitation of works, artists, and often illogical period/style names into memorable moments and lasting affinities for those studies.
Contrast that with the time-on task always predictable lesson objectives and expected outcomes, and demands for day-to-day mastery, endless checklists from Charlotte Danielson and Marzano and the rest.
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Laura H. Chapman –
Regarding “One of the most beloved Canadian high school teachers” –
just one advantage of living north of the 49th parallel.
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In each of my orchestra instruction room is a sign (in yellow and black) CAUTION
Musicians at Play.
‘nuf said…
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I hope that this doesn’t mean that someone will now design an instrument to measure and then rank this quality too. I wonder what scale it would be?
As I think about it, musicians do play. They play compositions and they play instruments. They are way ahead of the rest of us.
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“Testing Instruments”
The instruments to measure play
Are violins, which never stray
From measured notes and ordered scales
And rank musicians by their fails
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