Growth for Life

1. Growth for Life Shaping My Life

2. Learning and Creating • The Need to Grow • Experience and Change in order to become a New-Self

3. Learning and Creating • Growth by Learning - A Lifelong Quest • 'Learning is experiencing. Everything else is just information.' Albert Einstein

4. Learning and Creating • Growth through Creating • A Gift of Our Own Making

5. Learning and Creating • Not Burying Our Talents • Using our unique gifts for ourselves and for others

6. Learning and CreatingThe Need to Grow • “An unexamined life is not worth of living” - Socrates • “I am bored” – Today’s Teenager • What do these two statements have in common?

7. Learning and Creating • Recognizing Our Potentials and the Potentials Offer by Life • Read the story about the abandoned gold mine on p.31 and explain its meaning

8. Growth by learning • Learning is not limited to attending schools or colleges. In fact the greatest part of learning – growth in knowledge, insight and skills – is done outside of formal education

9. Growth by learning • Formal education is structured, done in a secure, safe environment, it is usually less flexible, more rigid, standardized, “objective” • The school of life is characterizes by freedom, risk taking, spontaneous attitude, independence, the lack of certainty, an individual approach, rather “subjective”

10. Growth by learning The benefits of learning • Learning offers choices -makes us smart to understand the difference between options

11. Growth by learning • Learning overcomes fear – ignorance leads to fear and prejudice, • fear of the other, • fear of the unknown

12. Growth by learning • Learning gives competence – it makes one knowledgeable in different areas, helping one to achieve his/her goals

13. Growth by learning • Learning helps us cope with change – • respond to new environment • gain new job skills • enter into new relationships

14. Growth by learning • Seven guidelines for taking responsibility for your own learning • Form habits of learning (develop self-discipline, foster curiosity) • Set goals (define the purpose for your life) • Take the initiative (take the opportunity for learning – formal education, evening classes, workshops…) • Be open (receptive to the people and events around you) • Be flexible (ready to change the course) • Do not settle for what is expected (learn the things you want to learn and not simply what everybody else expects) • Have courage (be ready to question the standards and norms and ask the uncomfortable questions)

15. Growth by learning Please go to p. 38 in your textbook and answer questions For Review, 1-5

16. Assignment Read Luke 15:11–32, the story of the lost son. What did that son learn in the school of life? How did he grow in knowledge, insight, and skills? How did his learning offer him choices, dispel his fear, increase his competence, and help him cope with change?

17. Growth through creating The Creation story • Human beings are created “in the image of God” (Genesis 1:27). • However, since God is the Creator, and human beings are made in the Creator’s image, we become creators too.

18. Growth through creating • Creativity – the drive to bring something new into being • Our sexuality urges us to bring about new life • History gives evidence of the human tendency to invent new product • The creative impulse accounts for great paintings, sculpture and inventions, bringing about new visions and possibilities for humanity.

19. Growth through creating • What do we “need” to be creative? • The common assumption is that an innovator, artist or a great leader must be highly educated and widely experienced.

20. Growth through creating • Yet, “the open soul can do wonders with nothing.” Ursula Le Guin • Nelson Mandela spent most of his adult life (23 years) in prison • Ernest Hemingway never finished college • Ann Frank was thirteen when she wrote her diary

21. Growth through creating • Creativity begins with openness to person's • internalworld: feelings, ideas, intuitions • externalreality: life experiences • Creative people also develop appropriate skillsnecessary to their field (weld, cast bronze, use chisel)

22. How creative you are? • Here is a Fun Creative Problem-Solving Quiz:Are you a professional? This short quiz will help you understand your thinking style better. The questions aren't difficult and you can scroll down for the answers. • 1. How do you put a giraffe into a refrigerator? • The correct answer is: Open the refrigerator, put in the giraffe and close the door. This question tests whether you tend to do simple things in an overly complicated way.

23. How creative you are? • 2. How do you put an elephant into a refrigerator ? • Wrong Answer: Open the refrigerator, put in the elephant and close the refrigerator. • Correct Answer: Open the refrigerator, take out the giraffe, put in the elephant and close the door. This tests your ability to think through the repercussions of your actions.

24. How creative you are? • 3. The Lion King is hosting an animal conference, all the animals attend except one. Which animal does not attend? • Correct Answer: The Elephant. The Elephant is in the refrigerator. This tests your memory. OK, even if you did not answer the first three questions, correctly you can surely answer this one.

25. How creative you are? • 4. There is a river you must cross. But it is inhabited by crocodiles. How do you manage it? • Correct Answer: You swim across. All the crocodiles are attending the Animal Meeting! This tests whether you learn quickly from your mistakes. • Around 90% of the professionals got all questions wrong. But many preschoolers got several correct answers. This conclusively disproves the theory that most professionals have the brains of a four-year old.

26. Growth through creating • Please read the two stories on p. 41 and complete activity 10.

27. Growth through creating • In the process of becoming creative one simply does not “wait” for an idea to occur. • Being creative begins with hard, solid work.

28. Growth through creating • There are certain steps one has to follow in the process of unleashing one’s creativity : • Preparation to create – the process of gaining the factual knowledge and skills • Concentrated work on the problem or idea (Genius is 1 percent inspiration and 99 percent perspiration. Thomas Edison) • Rest and retreat from the problem or idea - a time to clear the mind enables one to find new strategies • An “aha” experience – a sudden new insight is gained • Trying out the approach that is the result of the previous steps to see haw it works

29. Growth through creating Ways to Foster Creativity: • Give your intuition and imagination room to function – creativity grows in a quiet, unhurried moments • Have a creative space – most people have their definite time and space in which they are most productive (mornings, specific chair, and so on) • Interact with innovative people - stimulating relationships can give a charge to your work or idea • Ask questions – specially open-ended questions, “What do you think of…” • Break out of ruts – eating the same food, listen to the same music

30. Growth through creating • Set and keep deadlines for yourself – creative people make things happen; without deadlines, our energies tend to drain away • Focus your attention and dig deeper – learn, research, be informed • Set problem and conflicts as opportunities for creativity – many creative people freed their creativity by questions and adversity. • The Attitude of Caring!

31. Questions 1. Imagine that you have three days of free time but little money to spend. Outline I detail how you will use this time. Be creative. 2. List ten changes you would like to make that would bring new life in a small ways: for example, read more, learn how to cook, and so on. Start each sentence with “I’d like to…” 3. What is one thing you care about so much that it could mobilize your energy and attention?

32. Time of Renewal • Our creativity depends on many different factors and circumstances. Among them, an essential one is having leisure – time free from work and other duties. • Look at the word recreation • re-creation - creating again

33. Time of Renewal The Creation story • We began with the story of creation from the book of Genesis. • At the end of the story there is the idea of Sabbath day, the day of rest.

34. Time of Renewal • In the Eastern culture the idea of Sabbath/rest is expressed by the concept of emptiness. • People need empty times to open their head and heart to listen, to think, and to be in touch with themselves.

35. questions • Please go to p. 45 in your textbook and in your notebook answer questions “For review” 1-7