One day, during rehearsal, a rare moment of revelry was permitted to continue beyond a few seconds. A friend – Alex Stollar – began singing a parody of R. Kelly’s song. He was making it up on the spot, and the class was eating it up. Alex was very popular, but whether this contributed to his song’s positive reception is not clear. Regardless, I was jealous of Alex’s popularity, so I decided to one-up his song by singing my own immediately after he finished.

For your reference, the actual lyrics of the song are:

I believe I can fly
I believe I can touch the sky
I think about it every night and day
Spread my wings and fly away

I’m not a song-writer or a singer, but moments of desperation can bring out strengths we do not know we possess. I sang:

I believe I can run
I believe I touch the sun
I think about it every night and day
Spread my legs and have some fun

If you’re even a little bit shocked right now, you’re far less sheltered than I was in the sixth grade. My brilliantly spontaneous song and plan had backfired. With the last line of the stanza, the class fell silent. All eyes turned in my direction. Our teacher Ms. Robertson, a tall blond woman with unnecessarily sharp features, stared at me with wide-open eyes.

I was paralyzed. I had expected – in order of preference – either glory, quiet chuckles, or quick dismissal. But this response was completely unforeseen! Whispers filled the room, some girls were snickering at me from the corner, not even my friends were laughing at my parody, and the stupid R. Kelly song was still playing on the stereo.

Frozen in time, I slowly evaluated the situation. Clearly, my song had some evil power of which I was unaware. No one was hitting me, I hadn’t wet my pants or thrown up, and my grades were fine; so survival was not at risk. I decided there could be no harm in asking my teacher what I’d said that was so egregious.

I turned to Ms. Robertson, and – before I could open my mouth – she screamed at me in an awful, angry, male voice, “What are you doing! What did you just say!” I would have liked to answer, but her anger petrified me. She continued to berate me in front of the class. It seemed like hours, but I doubt the scolding lasted for even a minute.

Eventually, the class decided what was to be seen had been seen; so they returned to their work. Rehearsal was over the day. When I got home in the afternoon, I mentioned nothing of the crime I’d committed. I just did my homework while trying to figure out exactly what I’d done wrong.

I never told anyone the story, so I never found out what was so terrible about my parody. Obviously, as I grew older I learned how the song could be construed to have illicit meaning. Today, the memory is source of laughter for me.

But I do wish I could bottle up the feelings of confusion, shame, fear, and anger that I felt that day – and give the bottle to anyone who interacts with children. These were the feelings of an innocent boy who was beaten down for a misdeed he did not understand.

I wonder how many children are too scared to ask what they’ve done wrong when they’re scolded. Why are people so quick to make assumptions upon which negative conclusions depend?

A plea to educators, parents, siblings, friends, strangers: Always be listening. Always be teaching.

With all the cool websites to visit, thrilling television shows to watch, movies and music to steal, books to read, and games to play, it’s a wonder we’re not walking around in a post-Thanksgiving-esque stupor.

Then again, maybe that’s exactly what we’re doing.

Listen: It is vital for the growth of children and adults alike to create as well as consume. This is especially true for our youngsters, who may not remember a time when the world wasn’t accessible from a desk chair. We have to show them – remind them – that the world they experience doesn’t merely exist. Rather, it is built.

There are an infinite number of ways to create. Here are just a few:

• Draw. Just draw. Take 15 minutes this evening, go outside, and draw the clouds and moon.
• Write an Op-Ed for your local or a national newspaper. Even if it doesn’t get printed, you’ll learn about where you stand in the process of writing it.
• Cook something for the first time. Grab a recipe and get going.
• Become a photographer. Buy a disposable camera from a store like Safeway and take 5 photos from the perspective of an ant and 5 photos from the perspective of a bird (This means climbing!).
• Start a blog. Tumblr is easy to use and takes 10 seconds (literally) to set up.

And if none of those are appealing, think of another way to create. Or help someone else create.

Supplementing consumption with creation enables growth on multiple levels. When you create, you build the confidence in your abilities that’s required to take risks in the future and think quickly. What’s more, your creation may become a form of consumption for others. The world grows as we create.

One final method of creation: Responding to the creations of others. As you experience something, feelings and thoughts must go through your head. What do you do with them? Most people either forget them or don’t even notice them in the first place. But developing an awareness of your self, so that you can detect and understand your fleeting emotions and thoughts, is perhaps the only way to truly improve yourself from within.

As practice, try commenting on blog posts and online news articles. This will force you to think about what you just consumed, and eventually your thoughts will become clearer and awareness will require less effort.

From: XKCD