Talking Real Science.

Posted on March 2, 2011 by galarzamonsalve

This morning before breakfast, I walked up the hill behind my house with my 11 yr. old to check out her new make-shift ant lab. She walked with notebook and pencil in hand, ahead of me.  Still, she turned often to wait while I coaxed the toddler with us to keep the pace.  I recognized the ant lab’s layout instantly from a sketch she’d shown me earlier–  open roof,  six-inch high wood-plank outer walls and cross-walls placed to funnel ants to imported sugar-water.

So,  my daughter said and pointed to one corner,  that’s where I’ll bury one magnet.  And, she pointed at a different corner, that’s where the other magnet will go.  I asked her questions, told her the study seemed interesting and we started back home, both satisfied we had done well.

I need to backtrack a bit here.

Last week, a few minutes before we left home to attend classes,  this same 11 yr. old asked,  Oh, mom.  Did you sign my science project proposal? I had not.  But she had the paper at hand,  ready to sign and a pen to sign it with.

Visually scanning the paper, I asked What’s this?

She said,  Oh.  We have to turn in our science project topics today.  You see, she pointed to the top of the paper I held, there’s the question I will work on. I read,  ”Is the direction a plant grows affected by light?”   I faced my daughter.  She raised her brows.

I started, Darling? but paused to find the right words.  I asked how she planned to run her experiment.  She explained.  Then I let loose, Everyone in the world,  including you,  knows plants grow towards light.  Everyone!

She half-smiled.  So, what should I do then?  I have to turn this in a few minutes from now and it can’t be late.

I said,  Yes.  But you can’t turn this in.  It isn’t a question a self-respecting scientist would ask. I launched into a mini-lecture on how the scientific process is to catalyze new discoveries,  not to serve as an end in itself.  She ended up turning in a question she thought interesting–  about the possible musicality of pond frogs. We both knew the science teacher would deny this project.

But,  I told her,  while your teacher is rejecting that question, you buy time to come up with a really great new idea.  The science teacher did reject the frog idea.  And my daughter did come up with a much better project and re-submitted a question.  Neither of us knows the answer to this new question and (as far as we can tell)  nobody else (in the entire world) does either.  Her new project?  ”The effects of increased underground magnetism on red ant colonial patterns.”  She’s got six weeks to figure things out and a good plan sketched out.  What she does not have, is an answer.

On our walk down the hill this morning,  she told me about some of the questions other students had come up with and we talked about those.  One student is studying volcanoes ( there’s got to be at least one, right?),  another is studying whether fruit floats.  But who cares?   My daughter knows her question is good and she’s excited she will discover something new— something no one in the world yet knows.  Now we’re talking real science–  and I couldn’t be happier to see her excited about it!

 

* Wait.  Please stay a little longer:  You may have noticed I’ve changed my blog’s look.  What do you think about that?  Is it better?  Worse?  In bad-taste?  Tantalizing?  I’d love to hear your opinion.  If you’re new here… I’d still love to hear what you think about my site, creativity…the Universe!

Filed under: advice and expectations, Biology, Childhood, Creative Families, Parents, The Child, The Scientist | Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , | 2 Comments »

Everyday Creativity–”Low Church”, High Creativity–”High Church”

Posted on November 3, 2010 by galarzamonsalve

Last Friday, my three oldest children put together a puppet show for little kids.  The puppets were fancy and store-bought, but the curtain behind which my children hid was makeshift, stained in various places and fraying at the bottom.  The audience, mostly small cousins and friends and their parents, clapped and laughed often enough to keep the show going for more than thirty minutes. The plot of the puppet show went something like this: A knight goes on a quest to win the princess’s heart, but she falls in love with a monkey instead. At some point the princess beats up a pirate.  Confused?  The audience and their parents were, a little.

My children live for extemporaneous performances. On-the-fly creativity feeds their souls and bonds them to each other. They need not practice 10,000 hours to make their little cousins laugh, or yawn. They come together with whatever skills they possess, add some props, and create a show.  This fun creativity is a lot like “low church“.

I first heard the phrase “low church” the July before my Junior year of college. My boyfriend–who later became my husband, sat with me on a cushioned pew in a pretty little church in Old Westbury, N.Y.  At the beginning of the service, the congregation stood and the first notes of the organ introduced the Doxology. The people took an audible deep breath, in unison.

A split-second too soon,  a single, not unpleasant, microphone-enhanced baritone voice began, Praise God from whom all blessings flow! The people followed, loud and clear and seemed not to notice when the baritone changed octaves to sing the second verse.

My boyfriend chuckled and whispered, He just changed octaves! I had not even noticed, but I nodded.  Still smiling, he said, I never thought I’d attend low church here in New York.

The people of the Old Westbury church wore well-cut suits and polished shoes.  Still, my California boyfriend saw it as the New York take on the “Little Mountain Church House” sung by The Nitty Gritty Dirt Band.

There’s a little mountain church in my thoughts of yesterday

Where friends and family gathered for the Lord

Where an ol’ fashioned preacher taught the straight and narrow way

For what few coins the congregation could afford

Dressed in all our Sunday best, We sat on pews of solid oak

And I remember how our voices filled the air

How mama sounded like an angel on those high soprano notes

And “When the Role is Called Up Yonder I’ll Be There.”

Low church is participatory and sometimes runs on the fly.  Low church is friendly and rules seem lax compared to “high church”. In low church, you could change octaves while leading the congregation in song and no one would care.

By contrast, High church is racked with rules and discipline.  The main role of high church isn’t to connect with people and enjoy fellowship.  High church aims at inspiration. In high church, you feel awe for God and His Universe. You connect to the beauty of the sacred. Cathedrals bring the eyes to heaven.  Handel’s Messiah makes you stand.

High Creativity is like high church.  Creators, regardless of domain, seek truth and beauty and grand connections with what is not seen.

Photographer Michele Shea says,

Creativity is…seeing something that doesn’t already exist.  You need to find out how you can bring it into being and that way be a playmate with God.

Everyday creativity adds joy to the mundane. High Creativity draws your vision away from the mundane.

Filed under: Defining Creativity | Tagged: , , , , | Leave a Comment »

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