Wisdom begins with wonder-
From wonder comes affection-
From affection emerges connection-
From connection grows empathy-
From empathy soars creativity-
From creativity ascends wisdom-
Wisdom begins with wonder.
In the photo are the tools of my grandfather’s profession. Norman was first a miner in Wales, then a mine engineer in Wilkes Barre, Pennsylvania and later in life, he was an engineer who worked on the hydraulic models of our nation’s first nuclear powered submarine. The collection of rulers — brass, bone, and wood — were extensions of his creative mind, numbers worn thin with the patina of progress and use.
My grandfather’s life was measured by the tools he employed, both the tangible ones as well as his mindsets. While the physical tools of his trade remain with me as a collection and testament to his craft, my grandfather’s imagination for wonder and curiosity is what I admire most about his legacy to me. Nearly a half-century beyond his death, his sense of wonder endures in me.
In my teaching, I witness how design thinking, imagination, wonder, and creativity powerfully animate and shape innovation in the minds of problem-solving students. My grandfather perfected reverse engineering, the art and science of reasoning backwards. Using his gifted imagination, he could set a path from an imagined product back to its origins in raw materials. He could mentally materialize solutions, changes, and abstractions simply by using his greatest tools: imagination and wonder.
Norman’s measuring tools were extensions of his hands. The products he machined and manufactured were extensions of his imagination. Imagination breaks open the possible, summoning ideas, models, objects, solutions, and behaviors that no one has ever thought of before. Imagination is born of wonder, an attribute and practice that sets the mind’s compass and direction toward creativity. Every discovery begins as a seed in someone’s imagination. Bold imagination shifts our world, our practices, and even our mindsets. The brain that is so capable of inventing is also the brain capable of caring deeply and empathically, a necessary tool in today’s changing and challenging world.
The great paradox is that schools rarely harness the power of wonder and creativity. Why? How can our classrooms be laboratories for problem solving, not simply rooms for rote learning? In this series of reflections, I will examine the power of wonder to inspire, solve problems, and provide a new lens for classroom instruction, teaching, and lifelong learning. Our mind can imagine what our fingers cannot yet touch, our ears cannot yet hear and our eyes cannot yet perceive. Composers, inventors, scientists, and artists all know the power of wonder and imagination. As Socrates observed, “Wisdom begins with wonder.” So, in my second installment, that’s where we will begin.
Charles C. James
Director, D!Lab
August, 2022