Wednesday, April 10, 2013

Garden of your Mind


Mr. Rogers may have worn corny cardigans and taken a pain-stakingly long time to change his shoes but behind all that, he was a very wise, insightful man. He was able to make it feel like he was your favorite grandpa or the friendly old-guy neighbor. He made it seem like he was talking directly to you. Now days, if kids watched more of Mr. Rogers and less of Family Guy, perhaps we would have more quality kids, nicer kids, more respectful kids. Perhaps if both kids and adults alike watched the above video, there would be more creativity and less zombie-like staring at screens or less neediness/helplessness. I love the name of this video: "Garden of Your Mind" because it is just that. Things don't just grow automatically in a soil garden and neither do they in a brain matter garden. A real garden in the dirt needs sun, it needs the weeds to be picked, it needs water and it needs care. Your mind is your garden. It needs things to grow as well, like learning, exploring, thinking, and creating. In our mind gardens, we do not grow sweet corn or green peppers, we grow ideas. One of our greatest responsibilities as teachers is to help and teach our students grow ideas in the "garden" of their minds. If we aren't growing anything in the garden of our minds, how can we expect our students to? Do things that put your mind in a position to grow ideas. That can be different for everybody. Maybe that's reading non-fiction, maybe that's reading Game of Thrones, maybe that's doing projects off Pinterest. Maybe that's building something with your hands or exercising. Whatever it is that you do to help you grow the garden of your mind, make sure you make time for it. Share it with your students and talk about things that they can do to help their mind grow and flourish. So, what ideas have you been growing in your mind lately? I suggest picking up a rake and tending to your garden.

No comments: