Nature as a Muse for Stimulating Creativity

 Overview: Thoughtful Thursdays Session

The recent "Thoughtful Thursdays" session delved into the theme "Nature as a Muse" across literature, imagination, and music. The discussion began with an exploration of how nature has inspired legendary poets such as William Wordsworth, Mary Oliver, William Blake, and Emily Dickinson. Mary Oliver's poem "The Owl Who Comes" stood out for its profound symbolism. In contrast, Blake's "Tiger" and Dickinson's "A Bird Came Down" offered rich spiritual and imaginative reflections on the natural world.

The session then transitioned into stimulating creativity in children, using engaging activities like imagining an ice cream seller or visualising scenes under a banyan tree. These exercises demonstrated how vivid imagery and storytelling can cultivate a child's imaginative thinking.

The day concluded with Jatin Soni's musical segment, focusing on the concepts of melody and harmony. Using John Pickle's "Canon in D" and live demonstrations with various instruments, he illustrated how dynamics, timbre, and compositional techniques bring richness to music, much like metaphors in poetry.

Action Items

1. 📚 Compile a collection of contemporary nature-themed poems to be shared in the next session.

2. 📝 Create a lesson plan that leverages nature-inspired poetry to spark creative expression among students.

3. 🌿 Plan a nature observation field trip where students can explore, reflect, and create poetry or art based on their experiences.

Session Outline

1. Nature as a Muse in Literature

• Nature is described as a sensory feast, rich in poetic devices such as metaphor and allegory.

• Romantic poets drew inspiration from nature for spiritual renewal and introspection.

• Wordsworth saw nature as a healer, while Shelley saw it as a force of change.

2. Classic and Contemporary Poetry Exploration

• Mary Oliver's poetry is celebrated for depth and subtlety ("The Owl Who Comes").

• Blake's "Tiger" examined nature's duality and divine creation.

• Dickinson's "A Bird Came Down" offered a delicate portrayal of nature's quiet wonders.

3. Nurturing Imagination and Creativity in Children

• Encouraged imagination through visualisation exercises, such as scenes under a banyan tree or an ice cream seller's world.

• Discussed the importance of narrative focus, using a central figure or idea in storytelling and visual art.

4. Music as Expression and Structure

• Jatin Soni explained music composition, dynamics, and the importance of handwritten music for emotional expression.

• Introduced transcription as a technique to sharpen auditory memory and composition skills.

5. Understanding Melody and Harmony

• Clarified melody as a single, flowing line and harmony as a blend of multiple sounds.

• Demonstrated these using human voices and instruments like the violin and flute.

• Use " Canon in D" to showcase layered harmony and musical storytelling.

Next steps

• All participants are to practice listening to music while focusing on the constant pulse or rhythm.
• All participants are to provide feedback on the session to help improve future meetings.
• Jatin to share the link to the original Canon in D piece by Johann Pachelbel.

Think About Yourself - Byju Joseph

Courtesy: quotemaster.org

Think about yourself and plan your own life. If you don’t decide your own future, someone else will do it for you. Each time you fail to control your own life, you give control of your life to someone else. Your failure and success stories depend only upon you. You get what you make out of your life. There may be circumstances that won’t favour you. Don’t allow them to control your aim and to destroy it. You have to fight to achieve it and it is possible only when you are there. Never assume that somebody else will do it for your success. The way to success is not crowded, you have to make it all alone and at the end the reward is going to be only yours. There are people who blame others or their circumstances but in reality it is just the way to escape from their own responsibilities. You can find excuses, but you have to keep in mind that your life is hundred percent your responsibility, you just can’t run away from it. After all you are doing this to yourself only. You are not doing this for the sake of others or to satisfy them. 

Some people may go against you, that they may try to bring you down. But it depends on how you respond to it. Keep in mind everything remains powerless unless you provide power to it. There may be hardships, there may be circumstances that won’t favour you; keep in mind that if one door shuts down at you, the other one opens up for you, but you have to take off your eyes from the closed one firstly. Lookup for other chances; life always gives you chances to succeed. If it is not in one attempt, maybe the next one will be for you. You never know until you try.

Each and everything starts from your thinking. It all depends on the way you think. Your thinking becomes your reality; it is very true.  Imagine good things and good will happen to you. Imagination is just the way of making reality first in our minds. It is exactly like a blueprint which we make before constructing a building. Each and everything should be planned before it is executed in real life. Otherwise, it won’t make any sense. You will get all messed up without your planning in mind. It is like getting an overview or an idea about a certain thing in your life. Thinking is so powerful; it can make you more and more powerful.

Byju Joseph
The Fabindia School
bjh@fabindiaschools.in

Hope and Friendship - Achievers JMMS

Jones Salk said, "Hope lies in the dreams, in imagination and in the courage of those who dare to make their dreams into reality".

Hope is expecting something to happen. It is the feeling of trust. 

Friendship is the hardest thing in the world to explain. It is not something you learn in school. A true friend is the one who is with you in your tough situations and time. 

This story about hope and friendship shows the understanding of the teacher towards the child. The teacher puts effort into not making the child feel lonely and upset in the class.

                                 

Achievers JMMS at the John Martyn Memorial School, Salangaon, Dehradun  - Sweta Thapli, Meena Kukreti, Dolly Pharasi, Jyoti Joshi and Nisha Pundir

Managing Your Emotions - Ajay Vijayvargi

Courtesy: Learning Life Skills by Goyal Brothers

Success in life does not depend on what you have but on the ability to manage your emotions, how you relate to others. It helps in understanding others, their feelings and handling relationships. Social competence will have the biggest effect on everyday life.

Emotions play an important part in memory, imagination and all mental activities. Like our IQ, we have EQ. It also involves thinking about how you feel. You become aware of how you feel just by thinking about it. EQ helps you in using emotions in achieving goals. They not only help in finding out what we feel but also what we want to feel.

For example, if you know that you are feeling very angry at the moment, you would want to control your anger. If you are feeling sad at the moment you would want to control sadness and try to be happy. If you are feeling lonely now, you would make efforts to find friends. What you want to improve in your present state of mind will become your goal. 

Look around you and see how many facilities are provided to you today. But strangely the present generation is emotionally more troubled than the generations of the past. Children, especially teenagers, today are more troubled, more angry, more unruly and more prone to anxiety and worry. Why is it so? 

Teenagers or adolescents need more grounding in emotional management.

It means you should have the ability to choose the right emotion for the right occasion. For example knowing when it is necessary to be more angry or less angry. Wise teachers and parents maintain calm, do not lose their tempers easily when dealing with rudeness, laziness or rebellion of their wards. They remain calm but assertive, cool but confident. It has a better effect on correcting an errant child. Their maturity has given them a balance, they manage their emotions. Thus, what is important is the emotional management and control over thoughts as it is the key to happy and successful life. 

Ajay Vijayvargi

The Fabindia School

avi@fabindiaschools.in

Read more to know more - Sharmila Vijayvargi

Books are a storehouse of knowledge. They remove our ignorance and kindle in us a fire to know more. Books guide us, inspire us and enlighten us. We can become heirs to the wisdom of the past by reading books. We can use the knowledge gained by reading books for the welfare of the world. We become more humane by reading books. They can influence and change the course of our lives altogether. Apart from giving joy and knowledge books make us think and thus help us to develop our intellect and wisdom. They make our imagination fertile and boost are creativity. Therefore we should develop the habit of reading it is a very useful hobby, for it not only increases our knowledge but also helps us in becoming complete human beings.

We can fruitfully employ our leisure time in reading books rather than wasting it in useless and slanderous gossip. Reading books makes learning fun, develop our intellect and adds to our knowledge. It improves our vocabulary and grammar besides keeping boredom at bay. We can learn many things from books. We can enjoy reading stories, poetry, plays and tales of adventure. We can read about animals, birds and plants. But we should be particular about what we are reading we should choose books that are suitable for our age and interest.

   

Our parents and teachers can help us in selecting the right books for reading. Books -Our Best Friends for you’ll never find a better friend In all your life than a good book. It will enlighten, inform and entertain you at your will and yet remain silent and understanding. It will withstand any rough handling and open like a magic door.

When everything else is such a bore it will interest and please you once more. And when you are done with it goes back to the rack and stays there patiently and quietly until you pick it up again to learn, relax or entertain. 

Sharmila Vijayvargi

The Fabindia School

svi@fabindiaschools.in

Hope and Friendship - Prakash Dangi

"Hope" the word is small but it's meaning is very large for our society. Everyone needs it, and almost everyone exhibits at least some measure of hope if they have made it as far as this day. Optimism is the faith that leads to achievement. Nothing can be done without hope and confidence. Stay positive and happy. Work hard and don’t give up hope. A good teacher can inspire hope, ignite the imagination in students.

Hope allows us to approach problems with a proactive, positive mindset, and increase our chances of success. It’s when life gets difficult that we need to utilize hope the most. we must keep in mind that hope is active, it is something we do rather than something we have. If you find yourself in a situation that you would like to turn to, get out and start doing something about it. Put some action behind your hope. For example;. Today we can’t physically go to school, so we started online classes. Starting days only 2-3 students joined the class but after some time the students increased.

It is only possible to have hope. Being a positive influence on the world around you will inspire and motivate people to stay hopeful in their goals. Sometimes we face difficult conditions then confidence and trust have been broken, only hope sustains us in our lives. Friendship can simply be defined as a form of mutual relationship or understanding between two people or more who interact and are attached to one another in a manner that is friendly.

It is a  relationship of devotion between two or more people where people involved have a true and sincere feeling of affection, care and love towards each other devoid of any misunderstanding and without demands. It is the purest form of relationship between two individuals with no hidden agenda.

It is very important to have a friend in life. Each friend is vital and their significance in known to us when certain circumstances emerge which must be supported by our friends. All of the different religion, caste, position, sex and age do not matter. Friendship is important in life because it teaches us a great deal about life. We learn so many lessons from friendship which we won’t find anywhere else. Friendship never leaves us in bad times. You learn how to understand people and trust others. Your real friends will always motivate you and cheer for you.

Similarly, friendship also teaches you a lot about loyalty. It helps us to become loyal and get loyalty in return. Therefore, there is no doubt that best friends help us in our difficulties and bad times of life. They always try to save us in our dangers as well as offer timely advice. The relationship between a student and teacher as the most powerful element in the learning environment as the relationship can affect how students learn, achieve, perform and develop. Honesty and patience both are important role play in a hopeful and friendly atmosphere.

Prakash Dangi

The Fabindia School

pda@fabindiaschools.in

Dramatic Play: Sharmila Vijayvargi

Children of all ages love to pretend as toddlers. They first enter the world of make-believe by engaging in activities they see around them and by putting themselves in the place of others. This activity involves mind-body and imagination. It is a child’s rehearsal for life and is essential to a child’s full development.

As children grow older their play develop mere structure. They act out favourite stories, create original situations from life and imagine themselves in fantasy experiences world where anything is possible. If they are encouraged in this kind of play at home, they become ready for creative drama by the time they enter school.

Research indicated that the foundation for all literacy development is an oral language both receptive, the language children receive, and expressive, the language children use in everyday interactions. Experiences that develop creative thinking, problem-solving skills and enhance language development, contribute to children's cognitive development. Part of that development occurs as children create roles and scenarios during their play. As they act out their scrivener, they are building skills needed to follow plots in books that are read to them and in books they will later read themselves. The housekeeping dramatic play and puppet centre areas provide early childhood children with many opportunities to play creatively, to interact with others and to explore language as they act out roles both familiar and novel.

Sharmila Vijayvargi

svi4fab@gmail.com

The Fabindia School, Bali

Understanding Icons: Hate Learning Vs Love Learning

“A true teacher can inspire, hope, ignite the imagination and instil a love of learning”.

Being a teacher, we come across many students who don’t show interest in your class. We can relate it with the different players of a cricket team. All 11 players are different in their styles and skills. Some are good in batting, some in fielding and some are good ballers. Everyone has their different forte. Similarly, in the classroom, there are different categories of students. Few are active learners, others are slow learners. Yet another group is there, who hates learning. Here comes the role of a teacher, who has to walk an extra mile to instil the love of learning in this bunch of students.

This can be done by building a healthy and friendly connection with the students. Once a teacher is able to achieve it, it becomes easier for the teacher to do the hand-holding. When the students love and respect their teacher, they start taking the suggestions of the teacher in a positive way. The teacher can then identify the weak areas of the student and can focus on what can be done to stimulate positive behaviour and encourage them.

This can be done by different ways like praising them generously, to start from the simple and short so as to boost their morale. Instead of highlighting their errors, students can be asked to reflect their own work and eventually they will start learning from their own mistakes.

This will ultimately convert their hatred towards learning into love for leaning.

-Understanding Icons, The Iconic School
Inspiration from Kavita Bhupta Ghosh, author Wanted backbencher last ranker teacher

Bharti Rao: Writing is a Windowpane

Writing is the ability to convert thoughts or words or an act of reflection. Writing skills are an important part of communication. Reading and Writing go on together.  To learn writing  it is not so difficult, it can be learned like any other skills.

Good writing skills help to communicate with thoughts and opinions effectively. A writer is a writer. Everyone can write, but not all can be a writer. But if you improve your writing skills you can become a good writer.

When we write,  our brain uses every part of our memory and cells which helps to increase our creativity and imagination. Writing skills helps to improve our communication,  debating and speech skills.  

Writing is an art which helps us to focus and connect with oneself.  We should never be discouraged if we are not able to write effectively.  To improve our writing skills we should start with short and simple sentences.  We should use simple words. Slowly by slowly, we will be able to improve our vocabulary and then this will help us to be good writers.  

Reading,  speaking helps us to become good writers. Educators need to create a classroom environment that is conducive to writing. Good writers are better readers and their critical thinking is improved. To improve their writing skills students should read-aloud and then pen down their thoughts and express themselves.  Words are powerful so educators should motivate and inspire their students to develop their writing skills.  

You learn to write better by reading,

You learn to read better by writing, 

Reading and Writing work together to improve your ability to think! 

Monika Vaishnav: Do Schools Kill Creativity?

First, we have to understand ‘What is creativity?' Creativity is the use of one's imagination and new ideas to generate something new. I believe that all the children are blessed with creativity in different areas. But some time due to the formal education system, syllabus completion and a shortage of time, the children do not get a chance to show their creativity and in this way, their creativity is killed. They should be motivated to write, draw, sing and speak on their own using their imagination and original thought.  

A school must focus on co-curricular areas where the child can use his creativity to improve his skills in a better way. He should be allowed to think in his own way. The teacher should teach them how to think, not what to think. The children can develop their skills and do their best using their imagination and original ideas. Their creativity makes them unique and helps them to develop their personality. A teacher should understand that every child has different qualities and thinking. So, their responses and area of interest will also be different. So we should understand them and help them to grow their creativity in a positive way. If any school does not work in this way, they definitely kill their creativity.  I feel that the school like The Fabindia School does not kill the creativity of a child.

Monika Vaishnav

mmv4fab@gmail.com
The Fabindia School