Neoteny: Refusal to Grow Up?

Ah, here is what I want to be…when I grow up. ;-)

I don’t think education is about centralized instruction anymore; rather, it is the process establishing oneself as a node in a broad network of distributed creativity.

Neoteny, one of my favorite words, means the retention of childlike attributes in adulthood: idealism, experimentation and wonder. In this new world, not only must we behave more like children, we also must teach the next generation to retain those attributes that will allow them to be world-changing, innovative adults who will help us reinvent the future.

~ Joichi Ito in New York Times, In an Open-Source Society, Innovating by the Seat of Our Pants

Update (Feb 16): I saw Peter and the Star Catchers recently, only to be reminded that Peter Pan is probably the best literary example for neoteny.

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