I want to paint a picture and it’s going to be messy. Paint card, sticky back plastic, feathers and thoughts are going to fly. I know that it should be in a linear process to aid the reader but Tough luck. You are going to have to come on my journey and spend a little moment inside a creative construct that has multiple irrelevant associations and dizzying tangents.

As a child I was told stay inside the lines, what I want to say to that now.. NO, and no and no, see me, NO. Stop being disruptive, NO. Why do I have to stay inside the lines? You have placed this prescriptive 2 dimensional picture in front of me but I don’t see that. I want to modify it. I want to doodle and scribble over it and see the new patterns or associations that occur. I want to screw it up with other textures and see what they feel like. I want to test all manner of elements in this learning process but you say stay inside the lines and if I don’t I have somehow failed and have another picture given to me. So I have associated exploration with failure at 4 maybe 5 years old. Don’t be disruptive, don’t be difficult and don’t be naughty.

Then we move to Lego and free play… but I am told almost immediately to build a wall. BUILD A WALL…. How is that free. A huge number of society’s issues have been over segregation and as Dr Zeus showed in his ‘dystopinan’ book the butter battle that escalation through segregation and perceived difference is a mortifying and central part of failed community. So there is a child wanting to move and place bricks in colour and texture in a pattern of non-symmetry and is instructed to build a wall. Then praised if even by chance one brick is placed on top of another. Praising the chance building of a cognitive prison to creativity.

The poem ‘the boy that stares out of a window’ is my journey. Stop being disruptive, I am asking a question. Looking for answers is suddenly wrong??? He who has a why to live for can bear almost any how. (Friedrich Nietzsche). Okay so being disruptive will lead to exclusion either from the learning space or worse within it. Conscribe and reiterate what is needed for examination. Those who follow process are successful those who don’t are weighed down with the luggage of not being a part of our understanding the expectations, known as the low achiever. Worse still some turn of the creative and learn to become the passive learner or as John Biggs (1996) terms it the unengaged coaster.

This is the ember that is handed around to ignite the textured creative flame of the #poeticnursingheart . Essentially I am not happy and have never been happy to be indoctrinated in to sphere of discomfort unless it’s within a learning culture where my Para-dynamic assumptions are being challenged. This passion for culture and development of the eternal and existential wobbler of a question; who are you? where are you? is vital in the evolution of the student and the professional in higher education.

We are building towards another symposium in the new academic year and my hope is to engage more hearts in to thinking about the why? In all aspects of their lives not just the professional development plan but more the self-development plan. As I have come to learn through the completion of my masters conclusion and in the evolution of a model or theory for my potential PHD. If we are absent from the educational philosophy of the true self then what is the point of making meaning through learning? As Barbara Larivee (2000) suggests learning is not and never will be in the blocks of content but in the mortar of coming to know.

#poeticnursingheart

https://youtu.be/kQjtK32mGJQ

 

The boy that stares out windows.

Sit at that table and stay inside the lines,

Your spelling needs some attention,

See me,

Maybe consider having an assessment done as there are signs of challenges

It’s borderline, he is unlikely to achieve…..

Don’t disrupt the class,

 They said

You are damaging the experience for everyone

They said

Why don’t you focus on the question?

They said

What you think or see isn’t important just write what you have been told.

They said

I don’t want him in the class anymore

They said

Tell me what you are seeing and feeling

She said

You are a very bright boy and it’s clear you have been let down

She said

Welcome to the faculty

They said

Don you have trouble with processes, we have some concerns,

They said

Let’s have an assessment done to see why it’s proving difficult to follow guidance and policy

They said

I can’t mark this as it isn’t matching the expected learning outcomes

She said

Its beautiful writing and we have let you down

She said

Why don’t you tell us what you experienced in a way that makes sense to you?

She said

You are clearly a bright boy and we have let you down.

She said

You are amazing and it’s clear that you see things that other can’t.

She said

You have a real value and your abilities need to be appreciated don’t give up

She said

If only I could tell you what I see and feel when I look out the window as in that space it all makes sense.

Who can I paint my pictures with now?

He said