Wonder and the Thinks You Can Think

On a recent walk around the College, I noticed a group of Year 1 students walking across the oval. One observant child noticed something that made the entire group stop. “FROG!” someone yelled and the  attention of every single student became fixed on that poor little amphibian. The excitement in their eyes and the enthusiasm and sheer wonder of seeing a green tree frog was contagious. It reminded me of how a sense of wonder is innate within every young person. No-one has to “teach” children to have this wonder, it just comes naturally. It also made me realize how incredibly easy it is to lose our sense of wonder. As we grow older, we can become so “knowledgeable”, so ”educated”, so “sophisticated” that we lose the wonder of life and the wonder of living. A recent study on creativity explored the creative processes of kindergarten children and found that these students scored in the highest levels of creative reasoning and divergent thinking. The longitudinal study then measured their levels of creativity as they progressed through formal schooling and the results were frightening. The scores for nearly all of these children went BACKWARDS through their formal schooling years!

In his current TED talk, Sir Ken Robinson has suggested that our current obsession with standardized testing and congested curriculum stifles rather than stimulates creativity and wonder within our children. He makes the statement that teaching - really good teaching “is a creative profession… teaching properly conceived is not a delivery system… So in the place of curiosity, what we have is a culture of compliance. Our children and teachers are encouraged to follow routine algorithms rather than to excite that power of imagination and creativity”.

On that same walk where our students were discovering the wonder of green tree frogs, I also watched the musical team rehearsing for the upcoming performances of Suessical Jr. The opening song, sung so persuasively by Cat in the Hat, reinforced the importance of this sense of wonder, imagination and creativity that lies at the heart of all meaningful learning. The Cat in the Hat reveals:

Oh, the thinks you can think! Oh, the thinks you can think If you’re willing to try...

Think invisible ink! Or a gink with a stink! Or a stair to the sky...

If you open your mind, Oh, the thinks you will find

Lining up to get loose... Oh, the thinks you can think 

When you think about Seuss...

May we never lose sight of “the thinks you can think” and the importance of creativity and a sense of wonder throughout the entire educational journey. And may we never become too jaded or “knowledgeable” that we cannot learn from a green tree frog, a cat in a hat and a group of excited 6 year olds filled with a sense of wonder!

Teaching and the Overflow of a Full Life

A much loved teacher and leader who had a significant influence on my life and calling, Dr Howard Hendricks, sadly passed away recently. He used to repeatedly say, “Great teachers (and great leaders) teach out of the overflow of a full life. You cannot impart what you do not possess”. Hendricks understood a key principle of leadership and realized that only those who lead out of the overflow and abundance of their lives will leave a lasting legacy in their generation. Effective leaders do not merely give half-heartedly, they inspire others because they themselves have been inspired and this can only come from the overflow of a full heart and life.

Great leaders ensure that their wells are never empty and never stagnant. This does not mean the absence of suffering, disappointment or hardship in the leadership journey, but more importantly the cultivation of character traits and attitudes that endure through every season of life. Sadly, our current generation's obsession with celebrity and fame rather than leadership and character means we are quickly forgetting what it means to cultivate a full heart and life that prepares us for a lifetime of effective leadership and not merely 15 minutes of fleeting fame.

Dr Hendricks life was a testament to this overflowing heart and life, and the intentional digging of a wellspring within his life, ensuring that through every season and every circumstance he had something to give and something to impart to his students. Hendricks was from a broken home (where his parents separated as soon as he was born), and was told by his Yr 5 teacher that he would “most likely end up in prison”. Rather than embracing this destructive pathway, his teacher in Yr 6 Miss Noe, opened his heart to a greater destiny when she introduced herself to him on the first day: “I’ve heard a lot about you… but I don’t believe a word of it”. These few simple, heartfelt words transformed a troubled young man and so powerfully influenced him that from that day on, he desired to be a teacher.

And what a teacher that young man became – for nearly 60 years, Hendricks taught over 10 000 students, wrote 23 books, was the much loved chaplain for the Dallas Cowboys and inspired countless lives to teach passionately “from the overflow of a full life”. He was known as one of the most influential and engaging teachers of his generation and his most famous book “Teaching to Change Lives” is given to all our teaching staff at Heights College. His firm conviction was that “if you stop growing today, you stop teaching tomorrow” and his life over six decades of teaching and leading embodied this conviction. John Maxwell has succinctly stated that “leadership is influence”. In the life of Dr Howard Hendricks, it is clearly evident that his enduring legacy to teachers all over the world has been his influence in inspiring them to keep the wells of learning and living filled to overflowing – for out of the abundance (the overflow) of those types of hearts, comes the most influential teachers and leaders in every generation.

What an enduring legacy the "prof" has left on his generation - enter into your rest good and faithful servant...