I've spent the last couple of days asking kids to look at horseshoe crab molts. The molts are (mostly) unfamiliar, with all kinds of tiny surprises. We're going to Sandy Hook in a few days to see some live ones in the bay.
I can't draw.
The vast majority of my students spend hours a day staring at screens, and why not? The screens dance and flash through millions of sounds and colors, a tiny world screaming how wonderful its user is, and how much more wonderful she can be if she only does this....
I can't draw.
The closer you look at a screen, the less you see. That's the world our children live in.
The toys they play with as children are made of plastic, the details of each one identical to thousands of other.
Details elude them, because, for most of what they see, details do not exist.
I can't draw.
I don't argue with them. I don't care if they can draw. I care if they can see. It's not intuitive, not anymore.
Look again, what do you see. Trust me, look.
And several times today a smile broke out, and I heard the word.
Wow!
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1 comment:
awesome. i remember the wows i got a couple of weeks AFTER i brought in some stagnant pond water...it looked gross...and then a couple of weeks after it was teeming with flora and fauna. kids would come in to watch 'chrystal's pond' at lunch sometimes...
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