Jan Brett Quotes

I believe a child's most important job is to explore the world around them through play.

I am writing to make sure that kids don't lose very important traits like curiosity that can drive social change because oftentimes I think parents emphasise more on doing well in school, which is important, but perhaps that sometimes comes at the cost of a child's natural curiosity.

When kids play, they are working on imagining the kind of world we live in.

A child's greatest achievements are possible in play, achievements that tomorrow will become her basic level of real action.

We explore our environment, more than we are compelled to utter poetry, when we're toddlers. We start doing that later. Before that happens, every child is a scientist.

Kids don't need to be taught the value of making; they are natural makers, at least until traditional education makes them afraid of making mistakes. The long-term value of making for kids is in learning to become an active participant in the world around them rather than a consumer of prepackaged products and solutions.

The goal of education is not to increase the amount of knowledge but to create the possibilities for a child to invent and discover, to create men who are capable of doing new things.

Any educated person recognizes that curiosity and creativity aren't just important; they are among the essential human activities.

One way to think about play, is as the process of finding new combinations for known things--combinations that may yield new formsof expression, new inventions, new discoveries, and new solutions....It's exactly what children's play seems to be about and explains why so many people have come to think that children's play is so important a part of childhood--and beyond.

In an era of parental paranoia, lawsuit mania and testing frenzy, we are failing to inspire our children's curiosity, creativity, and imagination. We are denying them opportunities to tinker, discover, and explore - in short, to play.

All children have creative power.

You see a child play, and it is so close to seeing an artist paint, for in play a child says things without uttering a word. You can see how he solves his problems. You can also see what's wrong. Young children, especially, have enormous creativity, and whatever's in them rises to the surface in free play.

The best way to enhance a child's imagination is to make them read.

Imagination in the child is powerful. Reading and laughter and love are essential in our lives.

In play, a child is always above his average age, above his daily behavior; in play, it is as though he were a head taller than himself.

Play is the only way the highest intelligence of humankind can unfold.

Learning is the new skill. Imagination, creation and asking new questions are at its core.

Play is the best natural resource in a creative economy. Kids need more of it. It is the work of childhood. We hope to intrinsically change the opinion that play is not just a luxury but an absolute necessity for kids' lives.

If children are not permitted-not taught-to be adventurers and explorers as children, what will become of the world...?

Education is not just you learn how a mosquito flies in the rain, but you learn how to be creative and why it's exciting to learn things and create things and make up new things.

Play is the work of children. It's very serious stuff.

Education is the foundation for all we do in life, it shapes who we are and what we aspire to be. Creativity fuels innovation, and it's what all states should strive to instill in the next generations.

Children have a very good idea of how to distinguish between fantasies and realities. It's just they are equally interested in exploring both.

Don't limit a child to your own learning, for he was born in another time.

Sendak's 1963 classic 'Where The Wild Things Are' has long been a favorite of mine because of the creative imagery, fantastic adventures and, most of all, because of how this timeless story shows us that children need to be free to roam, explore and invent in order to understand their place in the world that surrounds them.