Visioning

Yesterday for class, we envisioned the future for the writing center project I work with at the Hill House. For an hour and a half, we sat around drawing pictures in groups. Pictures of representative vehicles, like pretend ferris wheels or angry subway cars. We drew stage scenes, forests, lots of picturs. Our homework for next week is to draw a picture then write about it. For awhile, I was thinking "Holy crap! All we do in this class so far is draw!!"

Then, we starting brainstorming things we needed for the center and lo and behold, we were thinking clearly. Ideas that wouldn't have occured to us to mention! Like who thinks to mention that you need chairs AND tables? Or a room with only one door so people aren't passing through en route to somewhere else? Through our group drawings, we revealed that a sense of community interaction was important to us, light, energy...I feel like I'm a convert.

Naomi, one of our potential students, was there. It was an open meeting and I was glad she came. We asked her what her goals were for a public creative writing class, and her goal was to be stimulated. She said that visioning discussion was the most stimulating thing she had done for awhile. It made my heart ache that students are so uninspired by school. Am I such a visionary, naive freak? I feel like I want to storm the schools and teach Orwell like Mr. Shank did, get the kids drawing Narnia scenes, act out parts of Brave New World. (I've always been into dystopia...) I hope that, once we finally start working with the public, that we can stimulate them at the very least. I am sooooooo antsy for the classes to begin!!