Charles Limb, Associate Professor of Otolaryngology-Head and Neck Surgery at John’s Hopkins University (and amateur jazz musician!), has recently explored the neurological bases for creativity, by looking at how the brain works as professional jazz musicians improvise with one another.

A key finding: to create musical forms no one had ever heard before, the musicians had to jettison the restrictive part of their minds, sidestep existing structures in order to build something new.

As the article explains: "Luckily, creativity isn’t an unknowable, mystical quality. It can be developed. 'You have to cultivate these behaviors by introducing them to children and recognizing that the more you do it, the better you are at doing it,' Limb said. The problem is a lot of kids don’t get much unstructured time either in school or out of it. School is often based on right or wrong answers, leaving little room for students to come up with ideas that haven’t been taught to them before."

We see this at Mouse: creativity is our birthright, the killer app of our species. Clear out a space and time for young learners (all of us, if truth be told!) to step away from received structure, provide some tools and general outlines of what one might expect, and then watch folks make something new. They'll play in service of learning, utility, and beauty.

Daniel Rabuzzi is the Executive Director of Mouse.