CHECK-A-DOODLE DO

29 September, 2020 | | 0 Comments

Is this seemingly disinterested teen a constant cause of worry to her family? Discouraging doodling is approaching the situation as a problem; it may lead to disaster, but seeing it as an opportunity can help the teenager confidently weave a vocation and may be her future career!

The pages are full of inked margins and undecipherable scrawls here and there. The math iterations are peeking out from the scribbles, the words of science notes are themselves part of the scratches. The notebook is ‘boredom in class’ personified of this 8^th grader. She doesn’t like science or maths, neither is English, history or geography her cup of tea, no wonder, all her books and notebooks are full of doodles. Parents are paranoid seeing her ‘untidy’ class works. Teachers are finding it hard to maintain her concentration in class.

 

Is this seemingly disinterested teen a constant cause of worry to her family? Discouraging doodling is approaching the situation as a problem; it may lead to disaster, but seeing it as an opportunity can help the teenager confidently weave a vocation and may be her future career!

 

Doodling in class is often seen as fidgeting to cope with loads of information student is exposed to. Encouraging reality is that when she is scribbling she might be listening all the more! Those ink filled “O”s and “B”s, shapes on sticks are signs of a creative mind, divergent thinking. It is not a sign of a distracted brain. Instead, it is the useful tool of a brain that is trying to stay focused. Research has shown that the ability of retention is more if the student is learning while drawing; that doodling is a thinking process rather than a drawing process. 

 

Fact-of-the-matter is when she is doodling, her brain is operating, it is engineering its own material. What else can we call creativity? 

A great teacher or an understanding parent can and should inspire this to become a skill.  Some innovative educators who believe in benefits of multisensory learning are encouraging students to make notes in form of sketches, so much so that video learning tools and tutorials and are heavily becoming the supporting gears in class! 

 

This may not fit for all though. Creativity doesn’t mean only drawing, sculpting or dancing. It can manifest itself through innovative thinking, turning new and imaginative ideas into reality. Some doodlers may not like to draw but still are out of the box thinkers.  

 

When they are embarrassed to display their notes to anyone, cringe at their names being called by the teacher, they need to be told that whatever she might love learning or doing are still not taught in schools and that she might have to wait a little while longer to find her calling. 

 

For those parents, when you are anxious about your inattentive doodling child’s future, it might be a great idea to try squiggling yourself, better still, with her, as unprompted drawings are effective stress busters. Be de stressed and think an out-of-the box future option her. Alternatively, LET HER BE!