In Japanese school, we had Moral Education class. In the class, the teacher taught us about the Moral. To me, Moral can be anything relates to sustain a positive and productive human relationship.
The teacher encouraged us to brush up our imagination skills. She said great imagination skills were the must skills when establishing good human relationships.
We performed many simulation lessons in the class. We read the books and listed up the main and sub characters, and thought about what if we were them, what we would feel, why we did this and that. Other times when we had a bully and being bullied situation, we thought about that from each involved person’s point of view. After we did that, we discussed about the alternatives on how they could improve the situations. These simulations were helpful to brush up our imagination skills.
Interesting enough, my daughter has a similar class as Moral education at her school. She is at the 1st grade. The teacher asked the students “what if” questions, such as What if there are only 2 swings and there are 3 students who want to play in the swing during the recess?
Some students answered they would run fast to get the swing first, while other students answered they would let other students play first, and wait for their turn. These are the major two options that everybody can reach. But in this option, one student has to wait for his/her turn. He/she might feel boring during waiting for their turn.
Then the teacher asked them if there are other alternative ways so that everybody can have a good time. With this question, the students thought about it, and they started sharing their alternative ideas. Their alternative ideas were going to the slide, or playing tag with everybody, so that nobody needs to wait for their turn. With these alternatives, everybody can enjoy their recess time. I thought this is a good idea to brush up the students’ imagination skills.
From my personal experiences, I feel reading the creation story is especially helpful to brush up our imagination skills. I know about Japanese creation story and Navajo creation story. I found it interesting because they have many similar messages in each creation story. Each episode of the creation story can be used as a teaching tool. When we think about the situation with using our imagination, we can learn lots of wisdom from doing so. When we fully utilize our imagination skills, we can feel as if the situation was happening to us in real, so that we can experience and feel the character’s emotion.
three wisdom 