I come from
a long history of RPG games such as D&D, so when I think initiative, I
automatically think of rolling dice. It’s important to win initiative because
you get to set the pace. You get to be in control of the situation. You act
instead of react.
Along with
the loss of creativity, which I posted about last week, there’s a lack of
initiative in students (and writers). The norm is to let someone else take over
and guide the situation.
I think
these are related. When creativity diminishes, there’s an increased desire to
let someone else take the initiative, to guide what’s going on. Often this is
relegated to instructors who are bombarded by messages of “I don’t know what to
write.” In order to get students to produce anything, we often have to take
students by the hand and move them forward.
I hate
doing that as I know with increasing instructions, with more and more
guidelines, creativity becomes limited. It’s impossible to have highly detailed
instructions without curtailing creativity in some way.
I think I
need to tackle the creativity problem in order to get rid of the hand-holding.