Observation

I recently volunteered for two hours at my son's preschool and observed something quite shocking while I was there.

The kids were making clowns (this isn't the shocking part): pasting heads, bodies, hats, etc to a piece of paper. The teacher told me she didn't care where the hat went, as long as the body parts were together. As I was helping one child paste his clown together, the teacher noticed that his head was squished close between his hat and body; she asked the child if that was where he wanted the clown's head or did he want it up higher? The child said he liked it the way it was. I was left thinking: "Does it really matter where the head goes?" I think kids have an idea of what order the body goes in. So, who cares if the head is further down the body or the shoes are off to the side rather than below the knees? Let the kid create the way he wants to.

I believe this is where it all begins--being forced to adhere to a certain way of doing things.

Later on, the kids were running around playing and one girl told a boy that he wasn't putting the (fake) muffins in the tin properly. (There were 3 chocolate and 3 vanilla). She felt that they should look orderly while he didn't really care. I told her that he could play with the muffins however he wanted and that's how we express our creativity.

The conclusion: the stifling of creativity starts in preschool. If you have kids, try to get them to hold onto their creativity as much as possible. This is what the world is lacking.

Finding Inspiration in a Couch

I'm going to try really hard to set aside some time once per week to update this blog. I know it's been slightly inconsistent, but I'm coming up with a time management plan (something I'm not that great at). Now, regarding the 'Couch' (or sofa for those people not familiar with the term 'couch'. I'll use it interchangeably throughout the blog)...awhile ago, a local lifestyle magazine wanted me to write an article on a particular couch that a certain furniture store was selling. I don't know how I got picked for this article--I must have pulled the short straw without knowing it. They wanted 300 words on a damn sofa. How can I make a sofa sound absolutely great without using the words "comfy, green, and cushy" too many times? I knew I had to think beyond the couch and what the couch does. I had to look past the whole issue that this is just something you sit on while watching TV and eating popcorn. (Usually the popcorn falls beneath the cushions and eventually you find it months later and vacuum it up. There also might be cash under there or dog hair or your watch and ring that your child hid there for fun.) The reality was I had to look past the sofa and into its roots. Amazingly, sofas have roots. They go back hundreds of years when only royalty could sit on them. Once I discovered how far back the couch went, the writing was easy. I put a little twist into the article by providing a little interesting background on the whole sofa thing. The article was no longer boring--it actually had substance. When writing, look past what you already see. Open your eyes to something you never really noticed before.