Function Over Form: How Our Toddlers Pimped Up Our Christmas Tree
My children helped decorate our Christmas tree this year for the first time. In addition to the obligatory Christmas baubles, they stuffed balls between the branches, which don't glitter and reflect, but still fulfill the function of filling the tree with additional life.
What stratagem did they use?
Number 14: “Borrowing a corpse for the soul's return”. The idea behind this is to assign a new function to an existing, often unused resource in order to achieve a specific purpose (Senger 1993: 215-232).
For our children, function goes over form: they recognized that the round shape of the balls was the essential characteristic for baubles decorating the christmas tree. Shine and reflection were secondary for them.
Unlike us adults, they tackled the task with an open mind. We are often bound by traditions and conventions, whereas they decorated the tree without any preconceived ideas. Instead, they made effective use of the resources available and created a new perspective that would inspire any draughtsman.
The result: our family vs. tunnel vision 1:0.
Good job!
Source
#36stratagems