When I’m asked to visit a school for a writing workshop, I’ll ask the teachers what they’d like to gain from my visit, and consistently I’m told, “It’s hard to inspire my kids to write.” We’ll plan a workshop to engage the kids, excite them about writing, and then get them going on their own projects.
Invariably, they’re inspired, and write fascinating stories. They never fail to impress me with their wild imaginations and how they can bring really freaky things to life.
So why do teachers find it hard to inspire their kids to write? What do I do differently? I’m not trained as a teacher, and I don’t spend time in the classroom watching teachers. I do remember my own childhood, and watched my kids in school. So here’s my guess, as a writer.
Kids are encouraged to play in nursery school and kindergarten, with sand or water tables and dress up clothes. When they get to grade one they’re told this is not a place to play. School is for work; you play at home. Except creativity is a form of play. So are we telling kids don’t be creative at school?
We tell them to sit down and sit still and be quiet and concentrate and do these math sheets and don’t daydream or look out the window and pay attention!, and they get a little break when they have art or music, if they have art or music, but then they’re back, for a novel study or a grammar lesson or a spelling test.
Kids spend much of their school day doing analytical work. We train them to be very good at being analytical, but we forget to practice creativity, to develop that part of the brain, to know what it is to be inspired.
When I make up a story with the kids, I always pick an absolutely absurd beginning, to give them permission to go wild. Then we dive in and laugh and freak each other out and create something absurd, and they love it. Once their creative juices are flowing, I’ll set them to work on their own projects, like creating a monster. They come up with incredibly inventive creatures, each unique, sometimes scary, always surprising.
But we’re noisy and sometimes inappropriate and really silly and overexcited and all those things many teachers (or their principals) try to avoid. Creativity is that way – silly, noisy, messy and absurd. It’s play and it’s fun, and if we want our kids to be creative, we have to let them be creative.
It’s hard to inspire your kids to write? Make up a crazy story together. Create monsters, and see what happens when you tell them to use all the senses in describing them (just think about that for a moment). Give them permission to play, to go wild, to be absurd. Make it joyful. And don’t ruin it, after, by scrawling across their stories with a red pen, and grading their hearts.
Maureen