like a child

i learn so much as a teacher.

i know a lot of people assume teenagers complacent and void of any compassion, but i know otherwise. i've taught for six years, and every year i'm faced with the incredible heart and resilience of these kids.

my second year teaching, hurricane katrina hit. immediately my students went into a frenzy. one day, we spent the entire class period brainstorming how we could actively engage in helping the communities devastated by the hurricane. this moment was a catalyst for me - completely changing how i view teaching and encouraging kids to pursue their dreams.

since then, i've seen teenagers rise out of complacency, finding ways to provide sustainable education for their peers in n. uganda. i've seen teenagers rise out of complacency, finding ways to offer hope to those who don't have the platform we often take for granted. the common ingredient? creativity.

SARK mentions she began hiding her creative thinking when she was in first grade. asking the teacher if the desks had to be in rows or if they could sit on the floor, the teacher replied, "no." from here, she created illnesses to stay at home and skip school - and then she would "read, write and create."

she missed ninety-two days of school one year.

according to her, this saved her creative life. "repression is poison to creativity" she says, and it's gotta make you wonder...what are we repressing in our students? creativity sparks learning. creativity inspires change. creativity harnesses emotion and without emotion, learning is wasted.

an example of creative change: five boys. four of them were fifteen, one was seventeen. all of them attended a private school. one day, they read in a magazine kids in Africa are so dehydrated they can't even cry. essentially, they cry dry tears. learning about this broke the five boys and quickened them to do something. with the encouragement of their teachers and parents, they created the DryTears campaign. first, they sold bracelets with "dry tears" embedded into the plastic. but soon, word spread. soon, these bracelets turned to t-shirts and water bottles and buttons and paraphernalia telling the story of dehydration and the need for water in Africa. since the start of this organization, these boys have drilled six wells in Africa (in 2008). no adults. teenagers. now, they have begun to take their story on the road to share with other young people the need for creativity - the need for change.

this is the major reason i feel thinking like a child - big dreaming with no inhibitions - is the single most important concept of innovation. with no boundaries, there's no telling what you can conceive.