Has Your Child Experienced A Calligraphy Moment?

When Steve Jobs dropped out of college, he found himself drawn to an unlikely subject.

In 1972, Jobs walked into his first ever calligraphy class in Reed College. 60 minutes later, he walked out a different man, entranced by the beauty and precision of handwritten lettering.

In his famous 2005 commencement address at Stanford University, Jobs reflected on his passion for calligraphy and its influence on his work:

“If I had never dropped in on that single course [calligraphy] in college, the Mac would have never had multiple typefaces or proportionally spaced fonts. And since Windows just copied the Mac, it’s likely that no personal computer would have them.”

It might seem like an odd pursuit for a young entrepreneur, but Jobs’ one-time encounter with calligraphy ended up doing something crazy - revolutionizing the world of self-expression.

Setting out to create the Macintosh computer, Jobs saw that people didn’t just want to express themselves. They wanted to do it differently from everyone else.

"I learned about serif and san serif typefaces, about varying the amount of space between different letter combinations, about what makes great typography great. It was beautiful, historical, artistically subtle in a way that science can't capture, and I found it fascinating. None of this had even a hope of any practical application in my life."

In that one short but profound classroom experience which might have seen like a waste of time, the game-changing features of typography and multiple fonts were introduced.

Simply brilliant.

Lesson: drop everything and send your kids to calligraphy school.

Bigger lesson: a single, unexpected encounter or experience could lead to an epiphany of world-changing idea(s).

The classic font selection pane seen on your computers. Fun fact: "the quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog" contains all the letters in the alphabet.

A Moment of Serendipity

In a quickest, most random moment, you got yourself an “ah-ha!” moment. We've all been there.

For me, it’s mostly in the shower. That’s why I recommend the waterproof notepad shower tool if you're looking for ideas 😅

One of the best inventions in human history where no more great ideas go down the drain!

So here’s the thing.

Your kids need to expect an unexpected moment of inspiration. Those ‘ah-ha’ moments come and go in an instant, and we struggle to remember that one awesome idea you had that could change your life.

Until it gets washed away in distant memory.

But the act of creating - whether it’s through painting, photography, music, calligraphy or any other expressive medium - allows children to capture a moment of serendipity. The brush strokes of creativity will be embedded deep into their memory banks.

Because when children produce their own work, they pay more attention to it.

Your child puts in extra effort to observe, reflect and contemplate their task at hand. They seal in a deeper understanding. They contextualize their processes and the learning becomes fulfilled. Ownership is theirs and they'll feel responsible for it's outcome.

With constant practice, these mental processes will train your child to become a creative human being.

Therefore, children will need to encounter their calligraphy moment to go above and beyond the mundaneness of life.

The question is - what is this moment, and how can you help them get to that point?

The Short of It?

If you want your child to be critical-thinkers and problem-solvers in the future of work that only demands out-of-the-box, unconventional & creative thinking, they will need to learn how to explore and express themselves in ways that can fire up those creative muscles in them.
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Instead of only pushing for activities that offer a favourable Return-On-Investment (ROI), know that not all experiences, as Jobs said, will have practical application in life - until it does. Remember, it took 10 years for Jobs to recall that moment he had in calligraphy class to realise that it was the solution to human self-expression.

Creative tools are powerful mediums for learning and expression. They're important because they speak to parts of your children's being which are otherwise untouched.

You may not see the ROI at face-value, but that doesn't mean it isn't there.

I challenge you to think about the ways in which your child can express themselves through the creative medium, and begin investing in it.

Be Well,

Captain Explorer,
Miss G (@gladyssoh)