imagination...

A friend of mine has a theory about art and play, which I completely agree with.  He believes that art is play and therefore play is art.  Children should be encouraged to immerse themselves in art.  He loved to watch kids as they made paper airplanes in art class and then fly them around the room making airplane noises.  He said at that point they crossed the boundary between art and play, because in imitating the airplane, they became the airplane. I don't recall the other points he expanded on, but it has made me think about how we educate children today and the message we give them about art and imagination.

 

I've always been a dreamer with a very vivid imagination.  As a kid, I was discouraged from daydreaming because it distracted me from learning important lessons.  Even in art class I was chastised for not focusing on my projects.  It didn't do any good though.  My school notebooks were always filled with drawings or short stories, even through my senior year of high school.  (In fact, I still dabble in writing but I haven't yet managed to finish a story.  My mother says I should be a writer, but I always joke that I'll try writing when I win the lottery and can take as much time as I want for all of my projects.  Of course, it would be generally helpful if I purchased a lottery ticket first.)  However, the discouragement I received wasn't as bad as what kids face today.  Today's society places a huge emphasis on advancing math and science skills, and focusing less on art and humanities.  We expect so much of these kids and yet provide little relief from rigorous study.  I've come to the conclusion that a child should not be chastised for having an imagination.  Without imagination we wouldn't have ballets, novels, opera, paintings, or music, and neither would we have discoveries in medicine and science.  Without imagination, researchers would never have invented the pacemaker or Cochlear implants. 

 

So now I'm doing my part to encourage imagination.  My main man Kyle, who lives next door to me (he's in 2nd grade), has been my shadow for the past year.  When I'm outside working in my yard or on my house, he inevitably comes over to keep me company.  We talk about a lot of things - Al Qaeda, where tap water comes from, whether women should be in the military, etc.  But we also play with our imaginations....he's the Washington Devils and I'm the Iowa Hawkeyes...and we alternate in who gets to win the imaginary hockey games (I know, I know, Iowa doesn't have a hockey team, but that's not important) or football.  Sometimes we play war, using bats as our guns and tennis balls as grenades (did you know they "explode" better after being wet?  That's what Kyle claims!).  It doesn't matter what we do.  I always try to get him to think about something, even if it's by making him reconsider something he had just stated as "fact" (usually it's only an opinion he's adopted from someone else).  I've discovered recently that he's VERY good at making up stories.  For example, he says that when I back my truck into my carport, it means that I'm going out partying and not coming home until dawn.  I have no idea where he got that, but it makes me laugh.  Even when he's being ornery, he's adorable.