Wednesday, July 9, 2008

Did I kill Creativity?

On June 15, 2008, the four and a half year old decided he wanted to draw a jungle.

"Mamma, how to draw a jungle?", he asked, and I told him how he could go about drawing a tree.
Fruits grow on tree, so of course, all trees have to have fruits. He drew four apples - "One for Papa, one for Mamma, one for me and one for my brother".
I asked him to draw a couple more trees, but he wailed - "But Mamma, I want to draw a jungle. I don't want to draw trees."
"Many trees make up a jungle," I explained patiently, hoping he would not then start thinking the neighbourhood park was a jungle, "so if you want to draw a jungle, you need to draw many trees."
He snorted. "Jungles don't have trees. Jungles have lions, and tigers, and cheetahs, and zebras, and monkeys, and jaguars, and elephants, and giraffes."
Inwardly grinning at the thought of all those animals coexisting in the same area, I told him how he could draw a lion - "first draw a circle, then ..."
"... then the hair," he interjected, "lions have lots of hair."
"Mamma, lions use what shampoo?", he asked seriously while giving his lion a smiley face...
When the lion was done, he wanted to colour him purple, but I insisted that all lions were a particular shade of yellow found in his box of crayons. We argued, and with my 'superior knowledge', I won.
His lion got its tawny coat, but the tigers and zebras remained undrawn. Did I end up killing Creativity that day?




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