Why must people persist in destroying creativity especially when they encourage it? Case in point; I have an eight year old son, he has many flaws and many very unique characteristics. One of his strongest is creativity; some see this as a flaw, others as strength. The other being that he is a rebel at heart, to me this is his best characteristic to most it’s just horrible. “OMG! He thinks for himself” anyway I diverge, back to my point.
Check back to roll call in the library (that “r” in the middle of that word is supposed to be pronounced folks its not the lie-berry) today. Instructor lets the children respond with any word they want as long as they are not a “bad” word (definition of a bad word in this case is a cuss word… {Let’s not get started on that rant.})
Come down the roll call and I am assuming that they are hearing things like tree, flower, bird, and such other mindless pap that our young skulls full of mush regurgitating machines are thinking of to say so they don’t get in trouble, boy would Freud have a field day with this exercise. (Google it I am not going to explain that reference here. Keywords: Freud word association.) Cut to my young skull musher with a slight amount of organization and independent thinking, his cogs are moving and he is trying to come up with the best word possible. Not being limited by the bounds of Political Correctness (I mean really come on he is my kid), also being somewhat of a smartass (crap that must be one of them there “bad” words), he comes up with a word that is not technically a “bad” word, but one that is lets say questionable.
Teacher, “Gary Anderson”
Gary, “Suicide!” He states calmly awaiting the praise he deserves, extremely pleased with his excellent command of the English language.
Result:
Referral to the office, no recess with forced exercise concentration camp style (yah they were interred for the way they thought too, yes beliefs are thoughts.)
Gary comes home and relates the story to Dad, accepting his punishment, as he decided before he said it that if the punishment were to come it would still be worth the joy of expression. (This would be cause and effect, decision making, and consequence acceptance. Something you have to be ready for when you are a bit of a Rebel.)
So just to sum up, the exercise was to be creative, he was. It was to encourage thought, he did. There were boundaries, he did not break them. He was punished for breaking the rules. Gary is ok and has decided that he will accept his punishment and try to be more like the other kids. Dad is pissed (“bad”), Mom is too (not “bad”), and fly off the handle. The day we punish creativity we truly do lose something. Now maybe it was not the proper time or place for this type of expression, but you cant punish a kid for following the rules when he didn’t do anything wrong.
Ask him the definition of suicide and he will tell you not to kill yourself as most kids would but his definition is “to kill yourself on purpose.” We are dealing with a massively intelligent child here who is far from a moron. He knew the word was not being defined, knew the definition and used it anyway to see what would happen.
We start to treat our children as morons; they will become what we expect. We treat them as mindless automatons (not “bad”) they will become that (I’ll wait while you get the dictionary to look up that big word.) Its because of closed minded retardation (not “bad”) like this that our country is committing intellectual suicide one child at a time.
I just have one more thing to say before I get back to browsing the “Suicide girls” on my computer, while listening to “Suicide Solution” by Ozzy, while I am waiting on my bootleg copy of “Suicidal tendencies” to download and then I am going to go watch M.A.S.H because I so love that song that it starts out with ummmm what’s that? “Suicide is Painless” that’s right. And then off to listen to the wonderful ballad “Suicide Blonde” by INXS to go to sleep on. Wait didn’t the lead singer of that group kill himself on purpose? Too bad there is not a word for that.
Gary, you deserve a reward, lets go get you a soda, how bout a Suicide (If you don’t know what that is then you are retarded {not “bad”!}) and I need a drink I think I will have a shot hmmm maybe a “Suicide!”
I am sure this article has led some to think I have just committed Career Suicide, guess what my boss could care less what I say as long as I produce. He’s an ass (“bad”) like that.
