Read the poem and write a response to it. The response is purely your choice and up to your discretion. There isn't a required length, but I do want you to deliver some kind of response to the following poem:
The child
is made of one hundred.
The child has
a hundred languages
a hundred hands
a hundred thoughts
a hundred ways of thinking
of playing, of speaking.
A hundred always a hundred
ways of listening
of marveling of loving
a hundred joys
for singing and understanding
a hundred worlds
to discover
a hundred worlds
to invent
a hundred worlds
to dream.
The child has
a hundred languages
(and a hundred hundred more)
but they steal ninety-nine.
The school and the culture
separate the head from the body.
They tell the child:
to think without hands
to do without head
to listen and not to speak
to understand without joy
to love and to marvel
only at Easter and Christmas.
They tell the child:
to discover the world already there
and of the hundred
they steal ninety-nine.
They tell the child:
that work and play
reality and fantasy
science and imagination
sky and earth
reason and dream
are things
that do not belong together.
And thus they tell the child
that the hundred is not there.
The child says:
No way. The hundred is there.
- Loris Malaguzzi
The response is due before 11:59pm on Sunday, 2/17/2013.
If you have any questions, please send me a message.
A very interesting representation of the lack of creativity in schools.Children are sometimes given a opportunity to express themselves creatively. As they work through their problems and ideas they become encouraged to depict their understanding using many different representations. Every child is creative in their own way, they learn what to do and what not to do as they mature. Everyday they use their creativity and their are hundreds of ways to express themselves.
ReplyDeleteChet Rosenfeld
ReplyDeleteWe are all born with a blank slate, tabula rasa, yet from an early age it is influenced by people, culture, school, etc. This poem captures that. It captures the limitations we learn and are told to believe. 100 is the number of wholeness and we are born with complete possibility. We learn to limit ourselves. We learn to push our imaginations to the back of our minds. But, it is in the imagination that we are free. We can dare to think beyond our limitations. We can be anyone. We can glimpse the infinite. This poem makes me sad because it points out what is stolen from all of us.
As a child we have so many possibilities. Children think like nobody else, funny crazy, interesting thoughts that keep everyone entertained. But these thoughts are discouraged in schools. Creativity is not allowed, fun does not go with education, and there is no joy in learning. Children are into so many things, have so many ideas, but those intelligent, creative juices are squeezed out at a young age. Children begin to struggle in school because they do not know how to work without creativity. I think this poem just reminds people that children can’t get to that hundred after they have been pushed down and taught not to be themselves, but the monotone, boring book.
ReplyDeleteI hope this is what the poem is attempting to express to the readers.
To me the poem is talking about society around children. That before the child is brought into the society it has the possibility to do anything. When the child is actually born into the society it is told that it can only amount to certain goals. Basically to the goals that are normal and help benefit the society, instead of pursuing something that the child wishes to seek. Then at the end the child shows that it can achieve anything that nothing has to keep it from being set to a certain level of achievement.
ReplyDeleteI believe this poem is saying that every child has endless possibilities of what they can do. It is up to each child to use their mind and imagination. When we are born we are setup to achieve our dreams, but schools put us down and tell us we that we can not do what we dream of doing and that there is not endless possibilities of what we can achieve. Schools try to make us believe that we can't do what we set out to do in life, we can't use our imagination, we can't explore the world and discover. At the end of the poem it sounds like the child doesn't believe thats true. The child still believes that there is a hundred dispite what schools say. Children are forced to follow what the teachers tell them and they are not able to explore their own imagination and creativity.
ReplyDeleteAmanda Crawford
ReplyDeleteI believe this poem is saying that we are all born as free thinkers and are able to do anything and imagine better for ourselves. That we are able to use our minds and imagination to do and become anything and achieve exactly what we wish too. Until, the school system rolls around and becomes an oppressor of our imagination and creativity. The school system does this by telling the child there is only one way and that we must follow this way and in a certain way. So in a way, the school system is telling the child to lose the creativity they were born with and become what is already out in the word, just like everyone else. But in the end of he poem, i see the child stand up and say "no the hundred is there". Which makes me feel like this child is rebeling in a way and actually using their imagination to become what they wish and not what the oppressor says.
I thought this poem was very interesting. It shows how creative kids can be or people in general. There are so many ways for people to show love and affection, but I feel as a child the ways really are infinite. When we are younger, there are no limits to our creativity. As we get older we allow society to steer us away from being creative and different because it is not viewed to be normal.
ReplyDeleteChildren are born with this unusual yet beautiful way to look at the world. All things are new to them and have endless possibilities. We as a society tell children that they are wrong if they do not see things the same way we do. However, we need to move away from cutting down the imagination of our youth and embrace it instead. Creativity and imagination are two keep components in innovation; listening to creative minds will allow us to adapt. As we get older and mature, we easily conform to what people tell us to believe.
ReplyDeleteA child has no boundaries, they are one hundred percent, whole. They are born with a curiosity to find things out, to experiment and possess a strong desire to do things for themselves. The adults in a child’s life can alter that child’s perspective, so much so as to enhance or even hinder that child from being themselves.
ReplyDeleteWe can inadvertently make a child fear everyday things, like falling down and getting hurt. We do not allow them to feel the pain that is necessary for them to learn to deal with situations and learn correct responses. Schools put them into a box. They become “products”, mass produced to reflect what society believes is important. Little by little the “one hundred” gets chipped away.
The child that loves to dance becomes the classroom nuisance that won’t sit still during circle time. The child that is mechanically inclined becomes the child that destroys everything. We make children the adults they become. If only more adults would embraced children for the people they are and recognize the talents they possess.
A child does not know that he cannot.
I watched a documentary about babies and the way they think when they are born. We are extremely intelligent, yet once we get to a certain age and start school, or even at home in some cases we are taught to be and act and think a certain way. Once we've had so much put in front of us and made out to be the "right way" we tend to miss out on our own ways of thinking which is more creative than we think. We are constricted to what it should be and so we follow that route instead of using our own ways. I feel as though society has its way of limiting us on purpose. The poem tries to make us see that we are born with every capability in the world, we just get blinded by society.
ReplyDelete