Elizabeth Gilbert makes a strong case for depersonalizing genius and creativity (see link below).  If we were to return to older ways of referring to genius as something one has as opposed to is, we make room for error as well as fuller success, thus freeing ourselves up a bit.  (More than a bit, probably.)

My cousin’s daughter said recently as she was painting “What?  I’m drawing an airplane?  I was supposed to be drawing a bird!”  It got me wondering whether perhaps kids are freer creatively not only because they haven’t yet figured out that we have the distinction between “good” and “bad” but because they don’t experience as direct a connection between their selves and what they create as older people do.  If that’s true, it also raises interesting questions about their behavior in general, and could explain a lot of the impasse at which so many parents and kids find themselves when it comes to expectations of behavior (at any age).

I think it’d be interesting to imagine how we might nurture creativity in kids if we saw it as something to have and not something to be.  Elizabeth Gilbert’s talk has more to offer than the bit I’ve written here.  Have a look, see what it offers in how you are with your kids and their art (and other behavior), and let me know what you think.

I set up a table at the local farmers market today, to invite people to talk about building kids’ lives around who they already are, as an alternative to struggling in programs where they just don’t fit.  I talked to parents, grandparents, kids, former teachers, a physician, and a speech therapist.  I got the impression that people are interested in talking about issues of learning and pathfinding in new ways.

Just before I left, a small group of young adults who’d been working nearby came over to find out what I was up to.  I told them a little about how I work with kids - looking for ways to make it possible for their lives to start right away, not later, after they’ve finished getting ready for life.  Their participation in the conversation was intent and intense, which makes sense.  They’re the ones who are at the place in their lives where these questions and issues are at the forefront whether they want them there or not.

They’re busy figuring out what to do next:  Should they Just Get a Job?  Should they commit to another chunk of education (either because they want what it will offer or because it will mean they don’t have to decide what to do for another couple of years)?  Should they venture down some other less beaten path?

If you know a young person who’s facing this kind of inquiry, I invite you to remember what a gift it can be (particularly from parents, other relatives and trusted adults) to have the chance to talk through such large-looming options without the tangle of judgment and opinion that is so easy to include.  It’s not easy to do, but it’s worth the effort.

And further, it’s worth figuring out how to make sure that other youngers don’t have to wait until they’re out on their own to work through some of the questions of where they might fit, belong, thrive.

* I haven’t mentioned the Teenage Liberation Handbook lately - for anyone who’s interested in pathfinding, and looking for resources to support it at any age, it’s a great reference. And another for the older young folk among us - Jenny Blake’s Life After College blog (helpful with or without college - a reminder that it doesn’t all just fall into place for anyone upon diploma receipt; there’s always figuring and discerning to do).

It’s been a lot of years since I first read Howard Gardner’s theory of multiple intelligences; I’ve started reading again from the beginning, with Frames of Mind (1983).  It amazes me that such a compelling argument for widening the scope of what we consider worth recognizing, acknowledging, developing in young people can have brought us such a short distance from where we were when he first published this book.  If you haven’t read it, especially if you’ve got a kid who doesn’t seem compatible with the traditional school offerings of our time, I’d recommend you have a look.

Sometimes the behaviors that drive you crazy when your kids practice them on you (in particular, resisting and generally refusing to comply without inquiry) are the very ones you want them to implement when faced with situations involving pressure from their peers or other sources. In those other unpredictable situations you want them to be discerning.  You don’t want them to follow without question. What’s annoying when it’s done to  you could well be a boon when it turns up at a party or behind the wheel - in the face of the unpredictable.

And it’s easy to point out the difference in the situations; you know that what you’re trying to get them to do is in their best interest (at least you have decided it is).  And they should be able to tell the difference.  But the point is that their parents are the only ones kids can safely practice on, so it’s actually quite wise, and a relief, that they at least begin with you. If you won’t honor the inquiry implicit in their resistance (as distinct from engaging in a power struggle about it), they’re likely to give up on practicing, or take their practicing elsewhere.

I love my digital camera.  Honestly, it takes better pictures than I deserve to be taking with my limited photographic skill.

The thing I can’t stand about it is that it’s designed to decide by itself what to focus on.  It’s supposed to be smart this way.  Even if something’s not in the middle of the frame, if the camera thinks it’s the most important thing, it’ll choose it.

Our relationship to children and childhood is a little like this at the moment.  We’re looking at kids through an auto-focus mechanism in which a preexisting force determines what we should look at, and thus not only what we’re able to see clearly but what we decide to put our attention on and pour our resources into. The things we know to look for and look at include reading or not reading, remembering multiplication facts or not, paying attention during the school day or not, getting in fights or not, doing homework and chores cheerfully or not.

The things we don’t tend to look for or see are the things about kids that are already beginning to determine and predict what they actually have to offer and what might make them thrive.  We might notice in passing, but we don’t give our attention to these things, because we’re busy with what the camera wants us to look at.  We don’t see the hints as to what activities and tasks kids are best-suited to, what kind of social situations are most comfortable for them and thus bring out their most pro-social behavior, what kinds of work they’ll likely be able to thrive at and sustain as adults.  Even though it’s right there in the frame.

What might change if you made the switch to manual focus?  What would you see?  Who is your child already, beyond the ways in which she doesn’t excel in school or other activities?  What does she do for hours at a time (exclusive of those things she does out of exhaustion or resistance)?  When is she full of vitality?  Who are the people who bring out the best in her?

You’ve seen your child’s brilliance and capacity, but you may also have been encouraged in this way to think of it as peripheral.  What if you moved it to the center of the frame, and let the rest get fuzzy as you go to work on honoring, validating, developing the brilliance and capacity that’s already there?

…makes the heart grow fonder, or so they say.  It can also make the plants seem like they’re growing faster, if you leave at the right time of year and the weather cooperates.

. … and 11 days later…   

Things can happen when/because you’re not micromanaging them.  My elation at the size of the plants upon my recent reminded me of that, along with something I heard on Radiolab some time ago.  The episode was about sleep, and in one of the segments,  Guilio Tononi, professor of psychiatry at the University of Wisconsin Madison, talks about practicing and practicing and practicing a piece of music and never quite getting it right, until enlisting sleep as a learning tool, or maybe a learning catalyst.  He wakes up and the music is there, ready to play flawlessly.

It’s worth remembering, I think, that sometimes things happen when one is not hard at work at something. The brain’s working all the time, fussing around with what we’ve been doing, what we are doing, what we’re about to do, and it’s a lot easier to think that learning something is a simple cause and effect process that happens predictably and reliably with time and effort commensurate with the time spent.  It’s so much more complicated.  What might the implications be?

Have a listen to the Radiolab episode if you’re interested in the sleep stuff, and/or how it helps with learning.

Just heard about this film scheduled for release this coming fall… http://www.racetonowhere.com/