Microblog Mondays 4: Creativity

 

Creativity is the most sought after skill these days, by employers, organizations, governments, teachers ( 😀 ), parents (???) – in short everyone. It wasn’t so always, since there was a different set of beliefs, way back: of how it is innate, inborn, instinctual, yada yada; for creativity was thought to be THERE, or not at all, in the NATURE of the individual.

The difference in perception is that now creativity is known to part of everyone, and has to be honed as a skill, not worn to the bone, and be made non-existent, as some school standardized syllabi, and “dinning principles” into the head by grown-ups to children have shown; and this skill can be a weapon or a tool, depending on the situation one finds oneself in.

So, if it is a skill, it is something to be developed- out of the box thinking, lateral thinking, divergent thinking, all these are buzzwords now, thanks to Edward de Bono, Dr. Ken Robinson and other crusaders of this skill, who would have been deeply impressed by my class 😛

My personal perception has been that  creativity is a set of skills, which seem to detonate within, to produce a kaliedoscope of…. well, whatever you will produce- notions, entirely disparate, gelling together in a new and never-tried-before-way 🙂

We had such an excellent example of a chalk holder, in the form of a Styrofoam cup, decorated with pen sketches of smiley faces, which got damaged by a certain young man, accidentally, let me add. So he was told to contribute another one, just as artistic in nature 😛 , and he did.

This.

Hand crafted!

 

 

The Joker! Now that is bringing another dimension, ain’t it, into the class?

For the teacher to read, when she takes the chalk, I was told!

 

 

Wise? Or is it Wise? 😛

 

Love this side of the box too!

 

Enchanting, is it not?

There is however, a fallout (as I have experienced personally too 😀 ) – the detonation has a tendency to disintegrate “discipline” – in whatever way one might take it 😛 😛 The same class has these extreme taglines right now – creative and all – yes yes yes – but the kids!!!! Shyoooo!!! As their (proud??? ) class teacher (who you all know to be the model of everything discipline is NOT 😀 ) what else could one expect! The upside of this experientially-derived deduction was another colleague’s observation that this is a natural by-product of creativity 😛 Needless to say, SHE does not “take” class for this lot! 😀 😀

What, by your own assessment (don’t you give a dayymn for others’ thinking 😀 ) has to be the most creative things you’ve done, recently?

17 November, 2014
P.S. (In school, after accepting that lovely chalk-box, spiriting it off to the Staff Room, for pictures, and an assurance to the class that it would feature in my blog, with the said young man featuring the second time 😛 , the first time being with this one – LINK

Other links: Sir Ken Robinson and Creativity – (LINK)

#MicroblogMondays 1
#MicroblogMondays 2
#MicroblogMondays 3

 

 

Microblog Mondays 3: Lucy’s Limmerick

… alternately titled, “Learning from Lucy”, this post is about an awesome Monday 😀 , specifically the third period of school today which saw me in Class 6, reading Mary Howitt’s “The Spider and the Fly” – a personal favourite, when I decided to introduce the learner group to rhyme scheme.

So, class six, and I did some rhyming words after which I put up four nonsense lines, kept shuffling them, and putting the “a” and “b”, according to which ever line they happened to be in- the group was getting into the act 🙂 Finally, we arrived at this aabb stanza, as given in the picture – an absolutely absurd, nonsensical four liner, when Lucy’s clear tones piped up from the second last row of the class!

Teacher, if we add one more line we would have a limmerick. Astounded (for I KNOW even a learner from the higher classes would NOT be able to identify this form of verse!), I asked her what it was, to which she said, very casually, a silly verse which has five lines, and the first two lines rhymed, the next two rhymed, and the last line rhymed with the first two. I gaped, I did; seriously- and asked her to make it one, by suggesting the last line! The class gaped along with me- this  sweet, absolutely laid-back, earnest, young lady sure had us saluting her knowledge! Hers is the last line, and hers is the Limmerick! (I know, I know, I have misspelt the darn word, but shall let it be… just to let you know, I am still a learner 😀 )

This post is incomplete without adding a line about the Queen of the Limmerick – Gulshan, whose comments on a few blogs here are all in the said form 🙂 She manages to churn ’em out magically, at the drop of a hat 🙂 🙂 Gulshan, meet Lucy, who I hope is going to follow in your creative footsteps!

And kudos to Lucy’s parents too – for having introduced their daughter to the wonder of the language and its forms! This is what I have learnt today- that each day I shall find magic, and be amazed 🙂 – Open-mouthed, and with utter glee 🙂

What did you learn today?

This part of the #MicroblogMondays series, about which you can read up more, when you click on the picture below 🙂

10 November, 2014

Click on the titles below to read the earlier editions of this meme 🙂

Microblog Mondays 1

Microblog Mondays 2

For Hope

Hopeless,
He said.
It’s hopeless.
The determined lines of
Reality etched on his face
The furrows of an
Unploughed fallow land.

Listing, ticking off on his fingers,
He mentioned why.
She listened.
Smiled, when he pursed his lips

And disagreed.

The Class sat up.
Ah! Now begins the Circus-
Interest suddenly puckered brows
And stretched lax lips into smirks.

She’s going to get it!
She’s asking for it!
They thought in glee.
(For there is nothing that
Compares to comeuppance
Delivered deftly, through a defiant, errant,
Articulate learner
To a nerdy teacher! 😀 )

Face off time.

He spoke; argued, intelligible
Passionate, persistent.

She held up her hands.
Now, he smiled.

Not in surrender, she explained.
The smile became a grin
Echoing hers and
Forty six other grins!

Hopeless? She enquired.
My two cents?
Not hopeless.

Confusion reigned.
The grins asked – can we vote?
And a young voice piped up-
Teacher, a debate?
A thumbs-up, mentally, to that,
She asked for other voices.

A perfect brainstormed map
Bloomed on the green board.

Gazing at faces, now not bored-
Till  suddenly- a thought nudged-
She had an ace up her sleeve-

For the pessimist- albeit realist.
She had a perfect salvo.

This.

(Please watch! –LINK!)

Hopeless?
She asked.
And smiled as she left.
Looking rather smug 😀 😀

Sometimes, it’s such fun
To take the wind out of another’s sails 😀

29 October, 2014
(6th period 😛 )
Based on real time Class Stuff 😀 😀

Microblog Mondays 2: The import of Culture

You’re probably wondering whether you want to read this at all, going by the number of “culture”d posts that are growing on the internet thanks to the event of the Moment that the whole world and its Mother-in-law are talking about! I refer, of course, to the KissOfLove Event that played out yesterday, in our neighbouring district, which then took over even National Television when the “protestors” invaded what would have been a peaceful, love-filled demonstration of the real thing behind what two flowers head-butting each other in movies of yore indicate 😀

I smile as I write this, having just come away from reading Shail’s perspective on the whole idea of it, on her blog (link)! But that smile stops there, when I recall a forward sent to me by father, with this picture. I don’t need to add more words!

While there are always people who would condemn, flay such notions behind events such as these liberal and life-enhancing ones, it is the argument they use that infuriates one. Culture; our culture; our Sadaacharam – or the right way to do things; where, the word aacharam means conventions, traditions et al. We speak of “Aarsha Bharata Samskaram” – the way of the Rishis; and this has been brilliantly contracted by none other than a discerning young and strong voice, Navmi’s, in contracting it to the first letter of each of the three words – Aa Bha Sam – Aabhasam – ironically, this means vulgarity. Again,  I do NOT need to say more.

Culture to me means humane living – in my space, and letting yours be yours.  🙂

3 November, 2014

This post has been written for #MicroblogMondays, about which you can read up, when you click on the photo below.

Microblog Mondays 1 here