Creativity, Unraveled

Sometimes, easy can also be complicated.

Honestly, since being here, just three months or so, I feel like it has made me stop and think, and actually get to a point where I understand a little more about how things are going around here.

Kids go to school, then after-school activities, then some other activities that parents think they need in their lives, and there we are. Packed for the whole week, with barely any time to breathe.

And then there I am, with my activities, thinking I am adding one more thing to their already packed schedule, when actually all they seem to need is a space to breathe.

So here is the space.

They sit. They talk. They create.

The Georgian language is still an issue on my end, but they do understand English, and the best part is that they talk. Youngsters having completely random conversations while making some crafts. Because, honestly, that is about my level of communication with them sometimes.

I teach them by doing, and then they do something completely different — which is exactly what they should do in reality. Figure out what they need and act on it.

Since I have been here, I can fairly say I have met all types of young people. And the more I meet, the more I realise that sometimes it is really only about letting them be.

I am still slightly frightened when they call me teacher, because honestly, it is not something I want to be here, or in life. 

I can be an educator. But youth worker is a title I am aiming for.

Or just my name. Timea.

That works too.

And for some of them, it already does.

With the others... we learn with time.

Dealing with the confusion.

“Am I doing it right?”

“I don't know how.”

“I don't know what to create.”

And honestly, that is probably the hardest part.

How do you show someone how to create from instinct when their whole life has been about following instructions?

Here, there are no instructions.

Well, there are some. But mostly there is just: do something.    

And for some of them, that is terrifying.

So we started slowly. A little bit of this, a little bit of that, making things that sometimes made sense and sometimes absolutely did not.

And somewhere in the middle of all this, they started to understand that there are no mistakes.

And, more importantly, that you are actually supposed to enjoy the process.

Now they’re really beginning to embrace it! 

My goal isn’t to tell them what to create, but to give them the space they need to discover their own creativity!

Anyway, until the next story.

—Timea