The Process of Thinking

A lot of who I am today is because of my school, as I have previously told in several of my posts. There was a brilliant system in place that pushed us to think, be creative, and produce genuine work however shoddy or error-ridden it might be initially. We were allowed to try our hand, and add a dash of our own colours to everything we did or learnt. All forms of art, expression, academic interests were equally supported, and that made us all so confident to 'be ourselves'.

Giving importance and acknowledging the thought that a child has put behind the work he or she submits can change the whole way we are moulded to think. I am not restricting myself to creative arts, music, painting, dancing, and the likes. Not at all. I have seen teachers who have appreciated kids for approaching a math problem from a innovative or different angle even though the final answer on the paper might not have been the right one! Reprimanding for a wrong answer when the method was actually to be appreciated can make the child stop trying to think innovatively, and instead might push the child to just stick to the traditional methods to avoid the possibility of mistakes. 

This taught us that to think about the process, and be innovative in the process and how we approach a subject is more important than thinking just about the results. In fact, innovative results are a mere consequence of an innovative thought process. So, when they focused on the right thing, we learnt the right lessons.

I agree that at the end of the day we all want results. Nobody cares how you did something. What we want is results that work. But, we should reserve such an attitude to probably professional activities where results are of the highest importance to everybody involved, and there are goals to be met. However, with children and young creative artists- it is important to teach them the right lessons, nurture and help them grow as thinking individuals, and also for us to look at their work with the right lens.

So, as teachers, as parents, as sisters and brothers, as fellow human beings who see the work of each other and comment on it- we should first look into what work, what process, what thoughts go into something, and give it as much weight, if not more, as you give to the end result!

As the picture says: think, innovate, be yourself. I thank my school and my parents for teaching me that!