A new year…a time to reflect on the power of wishing with a new FREEBIE!
Wishing - so often the first step to making something our reality
Right around the New Year, I had the joy of several days in Hana, Hawaii. And, as anyone who has been to Hawaii knows, Iz’s version of 🌈Over the Rainbow 🌈is a tune you often hear as you move around the Islands.
Memorably from The Wizard of Oz, Over the Rainbow is about a lot more than “just” wishing on a star. It evokes yearning for a place and time that we feel a desperation to attain, but that, in the moment is out of reach. Such a powerful mental state verb (MSV,) wishing is today’s theme.
Wishing can be either forward- or backward-gazing. Wishing directed to the past can teach us important lessons and observations we can carry into our future. Wishing can direct us to plan, work hard… And wishing partners so well with other MSV such as hoping, imagining, and missing.
During COVID, I had amazing conversations with many of my Zoom social learning groups about what they missed in their lives – what they wished they could do that was, at the time, unattainable. Whether it was team sports, or Tuesday night dinners at Gott’s, or birthday parties 🥳, or even in-person school, it was powerful for my students to talk about what they wished would return SOON. It brought us together, and, by putting language to internal wishing, made things seem a bit brighter, if only for a short time. It was like looking toward the end of a rainbow 🌈, and believing some day we would get there.
But wishing isn’t just for COVID times! As our elementary and middle school students become our high school and college students, and then become young adults, wishing is so important! In many ways, wishing has the power to paint our future in broad strokes. Then, MSV like planning and deciding come in to add needed details.
I strongly believe that everyone deserves the power of wishing. And an understanding of what wishing means, whatever that understanding looks like. That means using the word when we engage with our students. Encouraging and noticing wishing when we recognize it in what they communicate. And, as appropriate, having discussions about wishing, and the power of a wish.
That’s why, this year my “Best of” is a list of recommended animations that reflect the theme of wishing. Check out my suggestions for videos that will help you jump-start learning, sketching, and talking about wishing.
Download here
Once, a 5th grade group was talking about why they wanted friends, and they illustrated the idea: What do you wish you could do with friends?
May your wishes for 2024 lead to actions that bring you satisfaction and happiness!
