“... the “aha” moment, the flash of clarity that arises at unexpected times - in a dream, in the shower, on a walk - often emerges after a period of contemplation. Famous accounts of Archimedes figuring out a method for measuring volume as he sat in the bathtub or Isaac Newton grasping the theory of gravity after watching an apple fall from a tree often fail to recognize the knowledge that these scientists had already acquired. It takes time to reach an epiphany. Information comes in consciously, but the problem is processed unconsciously, studies suggests, so that the resulting solution often leaps out when the mind least expects it. “Great ideas don't tend when you're narrowly focusing on them,” says Kaufman.
History's most creative minds know this to be true. Henry David Thoreau documented the necessity of wandering to unlock his musings. “How in vain it is to sit down to write when you have not stood up to live!” he wrote in his journal. “Methinks that the moment my legs begin to move, my thoughts begin to flow.’ Julie Taymor, the theater director and creative force behind The Lion King, has revealed that some of her most inspired insights surface after rest. ‘A lot of my strangest ideas come from early morning sleep, and it’s really an incredible moment,” she said during a forum on the enigma of genius at the World Science Festival in New York City. “I get up and the thing has become very clear very fast. It's not deliberately done.”
When ideas begin to flow, one must be ready. Oliver Sacks, the neurologist whose best-selling books take the readers on Odysseys through the brain and human behavior, started keeping journals when he was 14 years old so that he could jump down ideas as they transpire. “I always keep a notebook by my bedside for dreams as well as night time thoughts, and I try to have one by the swimming pool or the lake side or the sea shore,” Sacks wrote in his autobiography.”
This summer I took a real break. It was done deliberately.
Part of my thinking was that I needed to keep taking control of my own health by striking a better work/life balance and being present to the most important people in my life.
The other part of my thinking was that I wanted to dig deeper into “experience” as it pertains to my role in our school board. So... I gardened, kayaked, played video games, biked, cooked, practiced yoga, took walks, spent time with people. I disconnected in order to do my work better. Or, in Thoreau’s words, I stood up to live.
All the best to everyone as this school year starts.
It will make you a better thinker and a better teacher.
