Setting the Stage for Creative Classroom Connections

To help set the stage for all kinds of creative and inspiring projects that I hope to share through this page, I wanted to share with you a song that I wrote that had me thinking about my own creative passions and interests in life and pondering questions like:

• What drives the creative process?
• Where can we find the levels of resolve needed to stoke the creative fires within us?
• What types of activities would allow us to tap into a sense of purpose, passion, play and exploration through creativity?
• How could I best help guide and support this process?
• What would an ideal creative learning environment look like?
• How best can I help spark the creative spirit within us all?

Click on the video below to hear this song, and while you listen, I invite you to scroll down and read about the inspiration and songwriting process that went into this song. 

Songwriting process unique to this song:

This first part of this track initially came to me as a loop that I had playing in my head while driving home from a day out at a school I was working with. I had been interested in acquiring a loop station for a few years. When this loop came into my head:

Don’t stop if you really wanna make it

Don’t stop! Keep on asking why?

Don’t stop, if you really want to make it,

Don’t Stop! Keep on asking why!

I decided it was a good sign and time to purchase an RC-300 Loop Station to play around and explore this groove a little more. Keep on asking why. And what a great driving inquiry question; ‘why’ can help you uncover a sense of purpose in why you are here and what you are drawn to seek and explore in this life.

The second part of this song came to me after hosting a Nation-builder Youth Forum while working with Treaty Education Alliance back in November of 2019. For this section, I was reflecting on the words of the Honourable Senator Murray Sinclair.

Education is the key to walking on this journey of reconciliation. Teachers, in particular, have a sacred responsibility to ensure that all their children, regardless of their heritage, are able to think about four key questions throughout their education: “Where do I come from?”, “Where am I going?” “Why am I here?”, and most importantly, “Who am I?”

– The Hon. Senator Murray Sinclair, Chair for the Truth and Reconciliation Commission

And thus, the lines that came out in the song:

Why am I here?

Where am I from?

Where am I going?

As we remember who we are

For the third part of the song, I was beginning to envision what the answers to these questions could mean for sparking creative potentials within us:

Creativity class, how’re we gonna pull this through?

Creativity class, think up what your mind can do?

Creativity class, you’re body, heart and soul count too,

Creativity class, dreaming, am an eye on you

To finish the song from here, the final verse is intended as a freestyle to be guided by the moment. The final verse becomes an invocation to the students to come forward and add something new to the song’s loop. From here, all things are possible, and I’m excited to see what happens as I build the Creative Classroom Connections passion project from the ground up that started with a simple tune in my head.