Rhymes with Orange

This morning, over our oatmeal with blueberries, my eight-year-old son announced that he wished someone would invent a word that rhymed with orange.  “You know, like norange, dorange or hippopotorange.”  “Really?” thought the proud parent.  I know that this kid is pretty bright, and he loves to learn.  I wondered what amazing and creative connections were happening in his brain that led him to this thought.  What innovative things will he do if someone actually invents this word?

Wow, this was getting deep, so I did what any good teacher would do:  I threw it back at him, and asked why he wanted someone else to invent a word that rhymes with orange?   I sat back, smugly, waiting for that amazing learning connection and life lesson that my son was going to share with me.  His answer came, and it was clear.  It stunned me at first, and it took me some time and reflection to really grasp, for within its simplicity was a meaning far more profound than I expected.

He said...wait for it...“Because then there would be a word that rhymes with orange”, and he followed that statement with that look we parents get when an eight-year-old has to explain something so obviously obvious.

Why is it that as we “grow up” we need to mine for meaning in everything that we do, and that the older we get the deeper that meaning has to be? 

This was a good lesson for me today, and it is about “being serious” all of the time.  I mean, being a principal is serious business, isn’t it?  People want me to be in charge, to have a plan and to demonstrate direction.  But, what about having fun?  What about forgetting about deep meaning, and digging down instead for that creative little boy inside of me? He is still there, somewhere, and he pops up every now and then.  He laughs because it feels good, and uses humour to try and cheer other people up.  He loves to learn, and can get lost in this thoughts whilst obsessively following creatively divergent thought tangents.  He often finds great meaning in the smallest of things, loves it when his senses tingle, and finds making connections between something learned and something new absolutely irresistible.  He stops to smell the roses.

 Maybe, I need to start explaining more things in my day with “because...”.  Not “because I said so”, not “because that’s how we do things”, not “because that’s the most logical thing to do”, and not “because that is what experience has taught me”.  Nope, just because that’s the way it is.

I think that am going to have some fun and play soccer with the grades 3s today at lunch. 

Why you ask? 

Just because.