Nature and Creativity

I am desperately trying to finish writing a how-to manual for Virtual Team Teaching (VTT), a project started ten years ago (the team teaching, not the book!) with colleagues from Vanier College in Montreal. We get two cegep classes to work together using a variety of communication and collaboration technologies. As I realized when I first tried to teach someone how to windsurf, it is one thing to be able to do something. It is quite another thing to teach somebody else how to do it. Like windsurfing, VTT has so many factors and skills that all need to come together at the right time in the right way. In windsurfing you have the wind, the waves, body position, sail position, board position, the way you hold the boom and the angle of the mast, and all this in relation to the wind and the line of your tack or jibe. In VTT you have the two teachers and their varying teaching styles, their college traditions, the culture of the city they are situated in, the program, department, the course, the activity, the learning objectives, the technology you are using, the classroom or lab setup, and all this in relation to the particular students you have. And you can probably add lots of other things like the time of the year, the day of the week, the hour of the day. You get the idea.

So what does this have to do with nature? Here is the thing, when we go for a walk, our mind shifts into what some like to call "right-brain" mode. This is the creative, intuitive, out-of-time kind of thinking that happens in the shower or on long divided highway driving. You are not really thinking about anything, and then a solution or idea pops into your head.

So I feel lucky to have great access to nature for long walks that can help me be a bit more creative and generate thoughts for all kinds of projects and life situations. I am just hoping today's walk will help me make good progress on my book!