On December 19, Honors College Professor Ellen Handler Spitz participated in a discussion on CBC Radio on “The Secret Lives of Children.” The segment centered around the idea that advances in technology combined with a strong focus on achievement can often suppress creativity, and children’s imagination can be a strong shield against cultural confinements.
During the segment, Spitz says that high tech toys should be traded in favor of letting children explore their inner worlds: “I think that children, when we allow them to make believe, this kind of vision and this kind of connecting…we should treasure it and not stamp it out.”
Spitz’s most recent research focuses on children’s aesthetic lives, and she has authored six books on the arts and psychology: “Art and Psyche” (Yale); “Image and Insight” (Columbia); “Museums of the Mind” (Yale); “Inside Picture Books” (Yale); “The Brightening Glance” (Pantheon); and “Illuminating Childhood” (Michigan). She most recently published “Magritte’s Labyrinth,” a new e-book which analyzes the artwork of Belgian Surrealist artist René Magritte.
To listen to the full segment on CBC Radio, click here.
Tags: CAHSS, HonorsCollege