An Almost Perfect Day

I had the most incredible day today. One student stopped me in the middle of the class and said, "What I like about this class is that everything is so hands-on." I was shocked. I had to tell him, "You know, the only thing you've had your hands on in this class is a pen and a piece of paper." Then it was his turn to be shocked. It was true.

We're working on getting our heads around creation stories, specifically, comparing the Iroquois Creation Narrative with the Judeo/Christian story of Genesis 2 in the New International Version (NIV) Bible. They've heard both stories, once just a listen, and the second time to pull out and write down objects/events and any symbolism they may percieve in them. We'll be looking for similarities and differences. But, there's so much more, and these seventh graders are so ready for big questions.

I put this writing prompt on the board. "Perfection is the enemy of creativity." - Edward Koch. Then asked them to write what they thought this might mean.

Unbelieveable. The level and intensity of conversation blew me away. I copied statements on the board, and prefaced our conversation by telling students that as we talk, see if you can place some of the things we mention into the meanings of the creations stories we've read. and took suggestions for a diagram that started to develop alongside the statements.
"If something is perfect, it doesn't need anything added to it, so there's no need to create anything for it."
"Perfection is impossible."
"If perfection is impossible, why try?"
"We can't be perfect, but we can try. We should. We struggle."
What about a perfect bowling game?"
"That's just a maximum, not perfection."
"Technology and knowledge cancel out religion. We get so full of knowledge, we think we don't need it."
"People make mistakes, so how can we be perfect?"
"Who defines mistakes?"
"What if we're still perfect, even with mistakes. Who are we to say?"
"There's good and bad. Everyone knows this. It just is."
"If perfection is the enemy of creativity, then imperfection is the ally of creativity."
"Well, we got that going for us."
Beauty, Plato, imperfection, the perfect ideal of something. It was really a thrill to have such a level of participation in class.

From there, we tied it into the creation stories. It seems that both of them begin with a perfect world. Then humans make a bad decision and end up in an imperfect world - this world we live in. They struggle between good and evil.

All of this emerged out of four minutes of writing and thinking.
Then we wrote again.

I'm looking forward to tomorrow.