@Trifecta 27 March 2022 more from that month

Coloring Outside the Box It's Sunday afternoon guys, and I thought to share with you today some work that is near and dear to me- my son's art. I think **it takes a special soul to be able to create art** and I am blessed to have found that in my seven year old.

My son is an amazing artist who loves to draw and to color. For now, his preferred tools are colored pens.  Whenever he is allowed to watch cartoons, my little boy would sit before the television with  his action figures, a sketchpad and ink pens, and he would draw his favorite characters as they appeared on screen.

The walls of my home are plastered with his creations.

Today, I color outside the box; tomorrow, I create it. When he was younger, I was concerned about my son's development. He wasn't holding the pencil like the other children. He wasn't shaping his letters like they were. He hated coloring in a box, literally, preferring instead to scratch the entire page and blend the most bizarre colors.

Today, my son still struggles to conform and to learn in he traditional way. He hardly sits still in class, chats through most lessons about the most mundane things, and refuses to concentrate on a lesson for more than five minutes.  "I'm sorry," he protested one day. "I can't help that I daydream." And yet, my son is an extremely observant and gifted artist. At least I think he is.

Interestingly, though he is not the model student, my son somehow scores excellent grades on every exam, learning things and absorbing in his own novel little way.  And so, while I am no artist myself, unless my knack for words can be counted as such, I try to encourage my son's talent and interests, particularly because I believe that they are beneficial, not just in helping him hone a valuable craft, but also in supporting his holistic development. I believe that art helps him to focus, to grasp detail in ways we may not traditionally understand. I also believe that his art helps his  problem solving, as to draw and create, you must sometimes use your imagination to think through problems and convey messages through images.  Does our Education System today adequately serve our Learners? The reason I am sharing this story of my son and his work with you today is not purely because of self indulgence, though I must admit that I am extremely proud of him and his work. I am sharing because I am once again questioning the value of an educational system structured for conformity and uniform learning, and not necessarily packaged to match the needs of the learner.  Some years ago I read the quote credited to Albert Einstein, **"If you judge a fish by its ability to climb a tree, it will live its whole life believing that it is stupid."** I felt that the quote was interesting even then because even though I was not yet a parent, I was concerned that many people who were truly gifted but different learners were being cheated by a system that required uniformity. In 2022, I am aware that the educational system has relaxed somewhat, it was far more rigid in years gone by. Today, more attention is focused on critical thinking, emotional intelligence, meaningful learning and there is less of a focus on learning by rote. Yet, in  many countries, a person's intelligence is still measured by his or her ability to excel at a test.  Almost like the Hunger Games of learning, isn't it?

And so, I wonder, my friends, how much of the world today is cheated of great talent because brilliant minds didn't conform or didn't test well?