Class activities:
We opened seated in a circle, sharing when imagination feels most alive in daily life. I spoke about hands-on making-tools, wood, wire-and mentioned the gazebo I rebuilt last summer as an example of creative problem solving. Then we composed haikus: three each; I completed two-one on summer, one dedicated to my grandfather-and ran out of time for a family piece. We read them aloud, practicing concise imagery. Next, in trios, we co-wrote haikus “exquisite-corpse” style: first person line one, second line two, third line three, discovering how constraints spark play. We then watched a video of a Japanese-American writer living in Argentina on silence and alternative ways of thinking, and closed by forming divergent vs. convergent teams to prep a future debate.
Personal reflection:
The haiku constraint forced precision: instead of explaining, I chose images that carry weight. Writing to my grandfather brought unexpected emotion and made me notice how memory compresses into details-a smell, a gesture, a summer afternoon. Not finishing the family haiku revealed a time-boxing weakness I want to improve. The group haiku taught collective rhythm: listening, leaving space, and building on others without steering too hard. The video reframed silence as an active tool for attention, not an absence. My main challenge was translating my maker identity into language; focusing on sensory cues (texture, weight, weather) helped. Biggest insight: creativity benefits from oscillation-divergent exploration to discover options, convergent selection to give the work integrity.
Personal application:
This week I'll add concise “three-line checks” to my workflow: purpose, key constraint, and test. Before coding, I'll draft a short, haiku-style summary of the problem to clarify the essence and choose sharper names. In planning, I'll run a quick collaborative prompt-each teammate contributes one line (assumption, risk, or success criterion); we merge them, then select one focal risk to address first. I'll alternate 10 minutes of idea divergence with 15 minutes of convergence and include a one-minute silence reset before final decisions. I'll track success by clearer PR descriptions, faster standups, fewer review back-and-forths, and at least one solution that emerged from the “team haiku” exercise rather than my initial instinct.