"Children aren't coloring books. You don't get to fill them with your favorite colors.”
Our morning inspirational stand up today was inspired by this quote by the author Khaled Hosseini. We thought about how we might interpret this and take it forward.
We were trying to think of the very many connotations this powerful line could have. First, we spoke about how, just because we have colours and just because we think children are empty books, we may feel the need to fill them up. But can we resist that urge and work on our belief instead?
Could we try and find other means to actualize our impulse to colour and create? For, our children are neither our work of art nor our trophies to display on the mantelpiece. They are living, breathing, growing, changing beings who have their own journeys to create.
Where does this urge to fill up colours come from? And not just colours but our favourite colours. What happens when we fill our children with our favourite colours? They start to look just like (and ONLY like) our favourite colours. What about the entire spectrum? Do we know the entire spectrum ourselves? And even if we don’t, do we want our children to know them, experience them and colour their lives with the entire range of possibilities?
What about the fact that we are coloured books ourselves and we can’t help colouring (or influencing) others. The mere act of being becomes an act of colouring. We are bound to at least ‘impress’, if not consciously 'colour'. How can we help this? One way to minimize the effect is to be aware of our colours ourselves and to know how these colours would or could interact with other colours, and with blankness. Some colours are darker than others, some stronger. Once we can know and see ourselves for the colouring books we are, we can begin to take steps to add new pages to this book…
Once we realise that we are coloured books, we might also realise how we need not have been. And perhaps, our children need not be either. Because if our children are colouring books, then even if we do not fill them in with our favourite colours, someone or something else might. What if we were to not think of our children as colouring books or blank slates but instead as seeds…which have lives of their own?
Contributed by Poorva Agarwal, Assistant Learning Facilitator at Sparkling Mindz Global inspired by an inspiration standup that happened at school in the morning of 21st Jan 2020.
#sparklingmindzglobalschool
#inspiringconfidentlearners
#youngachieversacademy
#21stcenturylearning
#everychildcan
#socialemotionallearning
Our morning inspirational stand up today was inspired by this quote by the author Khaled Hosseini. We thought about how we might interpret this and take it forward.
We were trying to think of the very many connotations this powerful line could have. First, we spoke about how, just because we have colours and just because we think children are empty books, we may feel the need to fill them up. But can we resist that urge and work on our belief instead?
Could we try and find other means to actualize our impulse to colour and create? For, our children are neither our work of art nor our trophies to display on the mantelpiece. They are living, breathing, growing, changing beings who have their own journeys to create.
Where does this urge to fill up colours come from? And not just colours but our favourite colours. What happens when we fill our children with our favourite colours? They start to look just like (and ONLY like) our favourite colours. What about the entire spectrum? Do we know the entire spectrum ourselves? And even if we don’t, do we want our children to know them, experience them and colour their lives with the entire range of possibilities?
What about the fact that we are coloured books ourselves and we can’t help colouring (or influencing) others. The mere act of being becomes an act of colouring. We are bound to at least ‘impress’, if not consciously 'colour'. How can we help this? One way to minimize the effect is to be aware of our colours ourselves and to know how these colours would or could interact with other colours, and with blankness. Some colours are darker than others, some stronger. Once we can know and see ourselves for the colouring books we are, we can begin to take steps to add new pages to this book…
Once we realise that we are coloured books, we might also realise how we need not have been. And perhaps, our children need not be either. Because if our children are colouring books, then even if we do not fill them in with our favourite colours, someone or something else might. What if we were to not think of our children as colouring books or blank slates but instead as seeds…which have lives of their own?
Contributed by Poorva Agarwal, Assistant Learning Facilitator at Sparkling Mindz Global inspired by an inspiration standup that happened at school in the morning of 21st Jan 2020.
#sparklingmindzglobalschool
#inspiringconfidentlearners
#youngachieversacademy
#21stcenturylearning
#everychildcan
#socialemotionallearning
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