One of my college professors used to always say, “Learning brings about a change in behavior.” Although I never had the guts to say it out loud, I often thought, “What nonsense! I learn things so I know more.”
My favorite aunt often said, “Youth is wasted on the young,” and I thought, “What kind of backward thinking is that!”
One of my friend’s frequent comment on life’s is, “Hind sight is 20-20 vision.” From where I think and perceive today, I absolutely get them…my professor, my aunt and my friend.
A couple of years ago, I walked into a pre-kindergarten class. The adorable little students were blithely drawing their understanding of and response to the story they just heard. The blue cows grazed on red grass; burgundy fish swam in yellow seas; square boats and circular houses dotted the landscape; and on and on and on.
Last month, I asked a fifth grader to draw his response to a story, and his immediate reaction was, “Oh no! I can’t draw.” Meanwhile, during the story, he was doodling and sketching all over some paper lying on the desk in front of him. Somewhere between kindergarten and fifth grade, this boy’s confidence in his creativity had been killed.
Fortunately for our society, not everyone has succumbed to the ridicule and reprimands of vision-less teachers who told and continue to tell little Johnny, “Leaves are green, not purple.” Meet the couple who insisted on thinking outside the box while preparing to live inside the “box.” Share your thoughts in the comments section, below.
Share one way or one time you have lived outside the box.
How are you teaching your children to be original thinkers and live outside the box?
I haven’t lived outside the box, yet. But I plan to in a few years. I want to have a farm in a secluded area with limited government interference. I want to generate my own electricity, dig my own well, grow and raise my own food. I want to home-school my kids and just basically go back a couple hundred years. That’s pretty far outside the box around here.
I am teaching my kids to think outside the box by explaining things like my dream to them and letting them draw their own conclusions.
Hooray for you, Traci! You are way ahead of me. I have gotten the “thinking outside the box” part down, and getting better at it every day. The “living outside the box” part is developing. Keep working on your dream and it will become your reality, sooner than you think. I’m with you there.