What Can Workplaces Learn from Kindergartens? More Than You’d Think.

Mitch Resnick, the MIT innovator who created the Scratch coding program for children, is bringing the same approach to early childhood education to his workplace. At MIT, Resnick treats his professional workspace as ‘Lifelong Kindergarten’ because he wants his team to learn with the same enthusiasm they exhibited when they were very young. One way he does this is through “Giving P’s a Chance” (Apologies to John Lennon for Resnick’s pun!) by focusing on projects, passion, play and peers.

Creativity is a social process with people collaborating, sharing and building on one another’s work. When people work on projects they care about, they’re willing to work longer and harder. Playful experimentation is a pathway to creativity as it encourages people to take risks and try new things. The four P’s of creative learning offer a valuable framework for guiding our work in education and beyond.

For more on Resnick’s four P’s, check out his book Lifelong Kindergarten: Cultivating Creativity through Projects, Passions, Peers, and Play.