Living Creatively

Creativity has many definitions, from generating new ideas or concepts to creativity as an assumptions-breaking process. “Creative ideas are often generated when one discards preconceived assumptions and attempts a new approach or method that might seem to others unthinkable.”
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Creativity)

In “Dumbing Us Down” John Taylor Gatto identifies seven lessons of schoolteaching:
1. confusion,
2. class assignment,
3. dulled responses,
4. emotional dependency,
5. intellectual dependency
6. conditional self-esteem,
7. surveillance

“Nobody survives the 7-Lesson Curriculum unscathed, not even the instructors,” he says.

Schools are meant to prepare the students for their future. Can we imagine what our children's future is going to be? If we are to have a national curriculum, I would like it to focus on one thing: protect the children’s creativity. Don’t interrupt the flow. Let the truly innovative ideas come and let the actions follow.

I think we could also be parented, socialised and institiutionalized out of creativity.

We need to think in new, creative ways. The problem is we don’t know how to. It might be that our creativity has been miseducated out of us.

When I interact with little children, I take pleasure in how creative, open and unafraid to try they are. I was listening to Ken Robinson, talking at TED Conference in February 2006. He told a story of a little girl, who was drawing a picture. The teacher asked her what she was drawing. She answered: “God”.
“But nobody knows what God looks like,” said the teacher.
“They will in a minute,” replied the girl.

Einstein had this to say about schooling: "It is nothing short of a miracle that modern methods of instruction have not yet entirely strangled the holy curiosity of inquiry." (http://courseweb.stthomas.edu/paschons/language_http/essays/Einstein.html)

Natural and Creative Learning

"Flow is the mental state of operation in which a person in an activity is fully immersed in a feeling of energized focus, full involvement, and success in the process of the activity." The concept proposed by Mihály Csíkszentmihályi. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flow_(psychology.)

Children come to us ready and eager to learn. Our job is not to interrupt their learning.

Most of the time, this is not what schools do though. Most of the time, the schools stop the natural learning process, stop the flow and impose something else, which JT Gatto describes so well.

My son learnt how to read at two and a half years old. It was as simple as we walk, we talk, we read. He had natural creativity, critical thinking, problem solving and communication skills. Most of the children do, if the environment is supportive. They pose questions, are curious, inquisitive, critical and creative. They take joy in learning. They are in the flow. They explore the world around them. They are intrinsically motivated and interested. Then the school interrupts this process, tells the children what they should be interested in and bribes them with marks and external rewards. It is now about unlearning of creativity. If we continue to school children into mediocrity, the system will not change, it will not improve. It will continue to demoralize us and to destroy the only home we have.

If you believe that school is not an optimal learning environment for your child, then contact me. I can help.

I am also available for talks on creative living, creativity and learning.

Suggested reading: Janusz Korczak, John Dewey, Alexander Sutherland Neill, John Holt, Ivan Illich, Everett Reimer, Paul Goodman, Carl Rogers, John Taylor Gatto, Ken Robinson.

making the invisible transparent

Hi Everyone,

My book of poetry "making the invisible transparent" is now available from The University of Queensland Bookshop, The State Library of Queensland's Library Shop, Folio Books Bookshop, Novel Lines Bookshop (153 LaTrobe Tce, Paddington).


Reviews


The former comfort of a God graced eternity is denied by a claustrophobic modernity - Niemira claims English as 'her new friend' yet a Slavic shamanism inhabits her language - gnomic phrases quiver as at the verge of transforming, if not the world itself, then the shadow it casts on our nerves.


Jeffrey Harpeng

“making the invisible transparent” is an exciting and surprising first book that confronts us with horror and beauty as the world does.

                             i hear the silence of blue amazement
                             the thoughtful scream of air
                             among hunger slavery and war

Agnieszka Niemira’s poetic voice draws at times on an idiom which will be unfamiliar to many readers; one that refreshes poetry in English.
    
                             Polish is like an old lady who knows how to live

                             dangerously and beautifully

And she does so in this collection. The variety of forms is impressive, including haiku, short aphoristic pieces, longer more experimental or abstract work and vivid vignettes that will be instantly recognizable.

                             When you are not with me

                             I miss you
                             When you are with me

                             I miss myself

The poems spark off each other as well, creating a journey from cover to cover that should not be missed.

Duncan Richardson  

    

The title is an exact representation of the content – of the life glimpsed through mystery. An unknowable understanding of life’s meaning is made known through Niemira’s poems. I say through, because she does not kill her images, fixing them with pins of logic so they may be classified only in dead glory. Rather she uncages her butterflies so the reader catches their meanings from the corner of the poetic eye, knowing the form of the transparent, but not the substance. At least that is how it seems. But when a critical gaze is applied we realise that it is exactly the form of seeming nothingness that brings meaning to life. One has seen through the paradox to know the unknowable:

                                  the sun calls me softly
                                  but words hold me

                                                i have written burning frost
                                                they have printed beautiful frost

                                                i still write

Niemira’s images realign the mind, the true stuff of poetry inhabits her work.

Mark Svendsen

invitation

Sunday 29 June 2008

Ahimsa House is proud to support a new local poetry group in West End - The Kurilpa Poets. They meet on the last Sunday of every month at Ahimsa House, 26 Horan Street, West End, Brisbane. Everyone is welcome. New poets please join in!

Next performance date is Sunday 29th June 2008. Time: 2:00-4:30 pm. Our feature poet for June is Agnieszka Niemira, who will be reading from her upcoming poetry book, "making the invisible transparent".


Bring your poetry, your friends, and join in the excitement!

salvation

we sit around the family table
as a vase full of flowers god is with us
together in a queue we wait

the salvation takes place
on the other side of the door

mother's triumph

i let him be
separate from me

day sends me out
where it’s sunny and green

night keeps me in
where words come

morning hours
bring pain

no longer

ode to the profit man

oh our omnipotent pest of a profit man

your market of cancers is booming
you are successfully globalising the decay
your mother poisoned and raped
cannot sustain life any longer

you must be proud of your asset column