Bird Droppings February 2, 2010
Do you have Imagination?

It has been just a few Saturdays back when I went by the high school to check on my menagerie and clean up a bit that as I went in I realized there was something going on in the gym. It turns out that the high school dance team was doing a dance camp. Thinking back about two years to a similar day and I had forgotten that I had said I would take pictures of the program. Fortunately I was at school and had my camera so an easy thing to take care of. The dance camp was girl’s ages five or so through maybe ten except for a two year old who was allowed to come because her mother was a friend of the teacher who was coaching the program.
I was up in the upper part of the gym taking photos looking down when I noticed this little girl walking from the other end of the gym to where I was up above. I took a few pictures and moved around the gym trying to get photos of al the dance team members and campers. As I finished up I went back to my room and printed off a proof sheet and group shot for the kids and their teacher to look at. As I stood with their teacher the two year old came over with her hands out reaching up, wanting to be picked up. It is so hard to pass up picking up a two year old. As I did she hugged me and bent over towards my ear and started to whisper. At first I was not sure what she was saying and it dawned on me she was telling me what she wanted for Christmas. She thought I was Santa Claus.
Well I have had a beard for many years and yes it is white through most of it but I was in jeans and a sweat shirt and Jackson Fresh Air Bar-B-Que baseball cap so no where near being dressed like Santa. I often comment to our Early Childhood Instructor and her students how four year olds are like sponges soaking up everything, questioning constantly and wondering about the world around them. Most of all I am always amazed at the imaginations of children and all that they can see and believe.

“Imagine yourself as a child lying on your back, gazing up into a cloudless sky, and blowing soap bubbles through a plastic ring. As a bubble drifts up into the sky, you watch it rise, and this brings your attention to the sky. While you are looking at the bubble, it pops, and you keep your attention right where the bubble had been. Your awareness now lies in empty space.” B. Alan Wallace

Many the times as an adult not only as a child have I sat blowing bubbles into a cloudless sky. Watching them drift away and up it only takes a few drops of glycerin and they last a long time. Sometimes it takes a bubble to draw our awareness to the sky and for some that awareness is so intent on the bubble when the bubble goes we cannot focus beyond and the hole where the bubble was makes no sense.

“The man who has no imagination has no wings.” Muhammad Ali

Sometimes it takes a little imagination and creativity to span the moment and bridge the gaps when then the bubble bursts.

“I noticed an almost universal trait among Super Achievers, and it was what I call Sensory Goal Vision. These people knew what they wanted out of life, and they could sense it multidimensional before they ever had it. They could not only see it, but also taste it, smell it, and imagine the sounds and emotions associated with it. They pre-lived it before they had it. And the sharp, sensory vision became a powerful driving force in their lives.” Stephen Devore

Almost in a conversely reversed situation I am so often amazed at the lack of imagination and creativity I see from people in general. It is so much easier to have a finished program, a cheat sheet or template and so much quicker to use preprocessed, prepackaged, procreated, and or pre-imagined anything. It is ready to go and just fill in the blanks and rock and roll. This is how publishers make fortunes and actually often politicians keep their hands in education requiring researched based materials being used in schools. Sadly the only researched based materials are produced by large corporate publishing houses.

“Perhaps it is that curiosity takes time or that kids have been encouraged by busy adults not to ask questions, but to sit passively, connected to TV or internet and receive and record. It is the job of school to wake up the synapses.” Frances Friedman

Our school system uses as a base what is called The Learning Focused approach to teaching. This involves questions, essential questions, and so many questions basically because we learn in the process of asking questions. Years ago I used to feel like taping mouths shut when I would go to the zoo taking my sons and their cousins. “Uncle Frank what about this or Dad what about this” and now one son in nursing school one nephew in medical school two of my sons with science degrees and a nephew working on graduate psychology degrees among them and I never really said shut up even when I was close to pulling out my duct tape.

“We live by our imagination, our admirations, and our sentiments.” Ralph Waldo Emerson

Many years ago as a child, now we are talking back in the dark ages, in days before Nintendo, Play Station, Xbox and such we did have TV but only three stations. Our games took form in our imaginations. We would play in an area of weeds, shrubs and over growth we affectionately called the jungle. As an adult several years ago I went back to the jungle and what was once a immense wilderness and trackless in its venue and is now only twenty small trees and fifty foot by twenty foot in the corner of a field. It is an interesting side note, a child hood friend many years after my father sold that piece of property and we moved to Georgia from Pennsylvania bought the land to be sure the jungle stayed there, it is all about imagination.
I was thinking back to several years ago my youngest son is twenty one now and when he and his brothers would have some of their greatest play time it would be along our old drive way in a spot they appropriately named paradise. It was a slab of rock and stones among several trees and many the castle and fort built there and hours spent all contained in a spot less then a hundred square feet.

“First comes thought; then organization of that thought, into ideas and plans; then transformation of those plans into reality. The beginning, as you will observe, is in your imagination.” Napoleon Hill

So often we as adults stifle imagination as my dear friend and teacher workshop instructor Frances Friedman states by being too busy to answer and stick the child in front of Nintendo or TV. The child asks us and we chose the option not to answer them. It does not take long and soon habits form and an imagination grows stunted and or is lost.

“Imagination is the beginning of creation. You imagine what you desire; you will what you imagine; and at last you create what you will.” George Bernard Shaw

Having visited Edison’s winter home in Fort Myers Florida, his gardens, house, work shop are all littered with imagination. As you walk midst the banyan trees and flowers everything is oriented around thinking, ideas, imagination, and creativity.

“Anything one man can imagine other men can make real.” Jules Verne

Long before anything nearly close was invented Jules Verne had imagined entire worlds and machines. Once as a child my father paraphrased Jules Verne “If you can imagine it, think of it, it can be done maybe not today but soon” Never stifle a child’s thoughts or creativity, channel them, direct them, assist them but do not push the TV or Nintendo over in front when a question is asked. Please as always keep all in harms way in your minds and in your hearts.
namaste
bird