Dancing on the Radio

Today driving back from the frozen tundra of the Green Bay area I turned on Wisconsin public radio. At noon there was radio coverage of the oldest USA state tribute to Martin Luther King. It was from Madison, Wisconsin and featured some outstanding music and speakers. One of the performers at the State capitol was the Ko-Thi African American dance group. Listening to dance on radio takes a lot of imagination. The African drum sound made things a lot easier for me. I had to use my imagination. One of the speakers quoted the saying by Alfred Einstein that “Imagination is more important than knowledge.” That was simply true in listening to Ko-Thi dance group on radio.

Imagination is probably one of the major reasons I am attracted to young children like my grandchildren. They naturally have great imaginations. Yesterday while I was waiting to go to the Green Bay Packer game my granddaughter, 3, and I were able to make up a whole new game just using a long ribbon.

Gardeners, especially GP gardeners, need imagination. You need to imagine what your garden will look like when you purchase seeds, a process that we in the DMZ are going through at the present. The same goes for the rain garden I am planning for the front yard. I need to imagine what it will look like by viewing the plants on the Internet before I can order them.

Yes, I agree with Einstein that imagination is more important than knowledge, but unfortunately our education system seems to be moving away from this notion. Teachers tell me that the Federal Program of “No Child Left Behind” is forcing them to squelch imagination in favor of factual knowledge in education. Hopefully my grandchildren and their generation will still be able, as adults, to enjoy dancing on the radio.

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