Teachers Recharge at SPARK! Retreat with FableVision Learning and Clarkson University
Relax and reboot - that was the goal of the Spark: Recharge your Creativity retreat held at The Clarkson Beacon Institute in New York. Educators from nearby New York and New Jersey joined fellow creatives from Georgia and Arkansas for the hands-on workshop held Monday June 27.
Click the video below to watch a video from the day!
In the beautiful space along the Hudson River, we created a space for teachers to decompress, connect, and explore creativity together. The Creatrilogy (The Dot, Ish and Sky Color), by Peter H. Reynolds was our guide.
Starting with the message of The Dot, we rolled up our sleeves and donned our courage to begin - to open ourselves to creativity. It was such a delight to see each teacher’s representation of their unique mix of creative strengths of heart, mind, spirit, and action. And watching them employ those strengths to make their very own novel creations was inspiring.
Ish opened a discussion into the creative climate and how to be open, playful, and motivated enough to engage in divergent thinking. We put these skills to work to solve the age-old question of how to get a walrus out of a library and give each other invisible gifts!
Sky Color inspired us to look at problems in new ways, and we discovered the magic words of possibility thinking.
It’s a joy to connect the dots with educators from around the country that are driven by a creative spark. We hope to see more and more of you in the next year! In the meantime, we encourage you to take some time to recharge somehow.
Here’s three ideas for your own creative recharge:
Get out into nature. Like Marisol in Sky Color, try noticing the things around you as you go about your day. Mindfulness is a creative skill and can even help you to solve problems you’ve been dealing with by helping you to see things in new and interesting ways. Try this mindfulness exercise we created.
Get playful. Humor is a creative strength and playfulness invites new ideas and openness. Plus, allowing ourselves to be silly and imperfect, quiets that critic that lives inside us, like Ramon does in Ish. Create a fun character to be for a day, play a game, or sing your favorite song from high school at the top of your lungs.
Find someone to connect with. At the end of The Dot, our main character shares her new-found creative courage with someone else - and that boy goes on to star in Ish! Finding someone to share your creative interests with builds you both up and feeds your creative spirits. You can also try connecting online with other teachers in The Creativity Circle.
If you would like to bring the Creative Spark to your school/district, send us an email at creativity@fablevisionlearning.com .