It’s been on my mind ever since my children entered school how odd it is that most school institutions “teach from the head up and slightly to one side”, as Sir Ken states. This needs to change as we are losing generation after generation of creative, innovative, world-changing type kids. We’ve been chatting with some in The Creative Space and others about changing the way we teach and learn in business. Maybe we need to think about taking that “divergent thinking” model to our children!
I’m just throwing out some seeds here…The Creative Space, with more space could be the soil. Now all we need are the farmers! Anyone willing to consider flipping our educational system on it’s ear? ;o) The key to a vibrant culture is allowing it’s citizens the opportunity to tell a great story – through their lives; through what they say and do and think and create. This isn’t just about art for arts sake, but the process of creating things and ideas and systems that are valuable to the community we live in. It’s about nurturing the body, mind, heart and soul.
Allow me to muse a bit more here….
Real art is a story immersed in emotion, soaked with inspiration from within and from without and illuminates that which is, at times, hard to see for us mere mortals. It all begins with the story – dance, fine art, literature, film, photography, etc – are the visual, auditory and physical representations of a underlying plot. They all aim to tell a story. We all intemperate the story in different ways, but without the story we go about our lives in black and white and our senses dulled by the “fluff” of what the media would tell us is art. Where are the good stories? Yes – What is the first step to cultivating the space where good stories grow? Good stories are everywhere! But like a seed needing soil, warmth and water, so too our young artists need space to create, space to fail and encouragement from community to keep telling their stories. Part of our calling is to celebrate the stories already being told.