"Children can distort, and play with figures and ideas, with a fluidity that strains us -- which we grow out of.”
--- Maurice Sendak
“Over and over I fall, I learned to walk from a crawl
It's not sad, it's just the way and the purpose of it all.”
--- The Beastie Boys
I suppose we all hit an age when the voices of our youth start to fade from the scene. Recently, two cultural figures who bookend my younger self have passed: Maurice Sendak and Adam Yauch. I read Mr. Sendak’s books over and over as a child—and read them to my own children, too. They were not, as he himself declared, children’s books. And, that may be why they stay with me to this day. “Where the Wild Things Are” was published the year I was born; “Licensed to Ill” came out just after I finished my first college degree. In many ways, it was recorded by Max and the Monster all grown up and turned loose in a recording studio much like the land of the Wild Things, which Mr. Sendak called a place “where you don't have to pretend to be civilized.” The Beastie Boys (note the Wild Things-like name) ‘distorted and played with figures and ideas, with a fluidity that strained’ the boundaries of music—stretching time, rhymes, and genres. And, if my own children’s sing-a-longs to “Sabotage” and “No Sleep Til Brooklyn” are any indication, their anarchic disregard for rules and playful rebellion appeals deeply across the generations to something within that demands to be heard … now … loudly.
If I look back, what I carry with me from my younger self (a self deeply steeped in literature, music, art and pop culture) is the notion that creativity cannot ever be something “we grow out of.” It is the spark that drives us forward to the new and challenging, to the fun and rewarding, to a place of experiment and discovery. And, it is the understanding that the courage to be creative grows when we feel safe working without a net, knowing that when the fall inevitably comes someone or something will be there to bounce us right back up. Or, as Max discovers when his time with the Wild Things has ended, he can ‘sail back over a year and in and out of weeks and through a day and into the night of his very own room’ to find his supper waiting for him, still hot and ready to comfort. Without that, none of us can dream wildly and stretch the corners of our worlds.
So, as this term hits its wildest point, where all fluidity has seemingly been drained dry, I wish all members of our community the spark to remember the raucous joy and simple comforts of what we do. Your creativity is the inspiration for our students’ journeys, their explorations, their accomplishments; and your readiness to catch them when they fall and pop them right back into the flow encourages them to be courageous.
Please feel free to share your thoughts on my blog. Thank you.
Anne Kress
President's Office
05/09/2012 |