Forest Green School

I heard a story today that inspired me and reminded me how creative the mind can be and given our response how important we may be in encouraging that creativity in students. We as individuals all carry a huge responsibility in moulding the future creativity in our world.
If we look back we can all think of creative thinkers that accomplished amazing things without which our world might look very different. Consider the obvious inventions such as: the wheel, the light bulb, the telephone, the printing press, penicillin and polo vaccine. Consider also the more contemporary inventions like: the cell phone, the internet, the iPad and the 3D television. All of this is really remarkable but let’s not forget the creativity of the artists, musicians and writers that have also put their mark on mankind. Where would we be today without all of that creativity? … the kind of creativity I heard about in the story that was relayed to me today.
The story is of a creative teacher who engaged her creative students in a visualisation exercise aimed at helping them be thoughtful and expressive about the world around them through their writing. It could have been through artistic interpretation, scientific discovery, creative dance or any other form of expression.
This teacher took her students outside to discover the elements of a fall day using all of their senses except sight. As they walked outside with their eyes closed they discussed what they were “seeing” through their other senses. When asked by the teacher where they thought they were the students expressively provided a detailed description of a location that was known to all of them somewhere near their school building. This was the point of the exercise, I gather…
…that is until one student exclaimed; “Teacher, I think I took the wrong path.” Initially puzzled by this, the teacher inquired about what that child saw in his mind’s eye. He proceeded to describe a mountain location that he saw somewhere in his imagination containing many of the elements that each of the children had experienced on their discovery walk (with a few embellishments).
Now let’s consider what the writings of J.K. Rowling, Shel Silverstein or my favourite; Dr. Seuss might be like without a few creative embellishments. I believe that this cooperative learning activity provided an unintended opportunity to take a really good activity to great and for that moment the student became the teacher. I believe that this experience will influence those who experienced it to consider taking one extra step when in a similar situation in the future. Who knows where that might lead to next?
The Road Not Taken
Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth;

Then took the other, as just as fair,
And having perhaps the better claim,
Because it was grassy and wanted wear;
Though as for that the passing there
Had worn them really about the same,

And both that morning equally lay
In leaves no step had trodden black.
Oh, I kept the first for another day!
Yet knowing how way leads on to way,
I doubted if I should ever come back.

I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I–
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.
Robert Frost 1874-1963