can you imagine?
My brother’s backyard has a small strip of dirt that is a hotbed of tectonic and geothermal activity. It is prone to severe weather events (dust storms), explosions, mudslides and the occasional meteor strike. Earthquakes, geyser and volcanic eruptions, dust storms, and various natural disasters occur with frequency in these twenty square feet.
Yesterday afternoon, I was maintaining a close watch on this treacherous backyard anomaly. My two nephews (seven and four) were in the thick of it. Small garden shovels created large magnitude quakes that resulted in landslides. A handful of gravel was tossed skyward – obviously the ejecta from a volcano. A shuffling of feet and hands in the dust resulted in a haboob that threatened to engulf me and drift over the block wall into the neighbors yard. My concern began to rise. It was only when dirt clod meteors began striking the surface of this micro-earth that I suggested a calming of the storm might be in order.
It is fascinating to watch kids engaged in this kind of imaginative play. It is beyond limits. Anything is possible. But, there seems to be an expiration date on this creative mindset.
Somehow, our world snuffs out the limitless possibilities of the childhood mind. I’m not sure exactly what happens – if we “educate” the imagination out of kids, or if it just diminishes as part of growing up. Whatever the case, we should be fostering imagination for as long as possible. In fact, it should be something kids and adults practice with consistency.
I’m currently reading History Matters - a series of brief essays and works by the late historian, David McCullough. In a 1991 address at the National Preservation Conference in San Francisco, McCullogh stated:
I hope very much that we will devise an educational system that does far more than is being done at the present to reward students in the school system from grade one on for two qualities that are largely ignored in the present system. The first is imagination, originality, spontaneity – call it what you want. The second is a willingness to take risks.
As a former educator, I fear we are falling short of Mr. McCullough’s ambitions. Schools (largely due to pressure from government entities and mandatory testing) have become so focused on results that they have lost the essential intangibles of education. Like the arts. In many cases, we have even turned reading into a “challenge” instead of a pleasurable activity.
In addition, cell phones, social media, and generative AI present significant challenges to fostering imagination and the willingness to take risks. Not only are there inherent issues with the technology (silo effect, peer pressure, plagiarism, determination of truth, etc.), screen time takes away opportunities for more healthy endeavors. Reading. Art. Photography. Musical instruments. Or, playing outdoors, in the dirt, in a rare geological wonder.
Can you imagine a world without imagination?