When we talk about having a vision, I think the most common example is John F. Kennedy's Apollo program, which was launched in 1962 with the idea of sending humans to the moon and back to earth by the end of the 1960s. I think it was a great backcasting and vision of the future that we wanted, not whether we could do it or not, because in 1962 the United States could not build rockets properly.
But not everyone can have such a clear vision from the very beginning. And my favourite example of this is when the French Impressionists came into being. Impressionists don't paint churches, gods and other things that everyone respects. They paint gardens, street corners and other ordinary stuff as not they see, but as they feel the view. Claude Monet, a key figure in what is now known as Impressionism, wrote that there was only a direction of vision in the early days and no clear idea of what he wanted to paint. They spent many days in the salon in Paris discussing what Impressionism was all about. There must have been many mistakes. Through trial and error, the Impressionists, who used a lot of purples, were born.
Drawing perfect circle:
To teach the students the idea of taking a vision as a direction and stepping forward, I asked the high school students to draw a round circle.
First of all, you need a piece of paper and a pencil. Then, draw the largest perfect circle on the paper freehand. Then we asked the high school students to draw a circle.
Even if you know what a perfect circle is, it's hard to imagine it clearly and draw it on a piece of paper. At least half of the students draw a circle by turning their arms once. As I demonstrate in the video below. When I asked who used the eraser, quite a few people raised their hands.
I then demonstrated how to draw a round circle without using an eraser.
At first, the pencil does not touch the paper. When you feel that you have a good idea of what the circle will look like, lightly dip the pencil onto the paper and mark the area where you think the circle will be. Then, by turning the pencil several times, you can find a circle that looks more round. Compare and decide whether you should go a little further to the right or the left of the previous line and find a more rounded circle. Towards the end, when I felt more confident, I made the circles darker. It took me about a dozen seconds more than the first demonstration to draw a circle in one go, but the circle I drew after many turns were much rounder. I also felt less anxious than if I had drawn the circle in one go. As one student said, "Anyone can draw a round circle as long as they keep turning their hand and don't give up".
In this second demonstration, it is better not to use the eraser, or rather, not to erase the failed lines with the eraser. If you use the eraser, you have nothing to compare it with, so you have no guide to draw a better circle. The analysis is about the comparison. If you erase the mistake with an eraser, you have nothing to compare with. So failure, in the beginning, is not a failure, but something to compare to, which is the foundation for success. After the circle has been drawn, the failed circle at the beginning is no longer visible. They are still there, but the final successful circle has erased them visually. It is a failure because no one knew about it. That's why no one notices anything that looks like a failure.
This is what adults mean when they tell you to try, even if you fail, and in this way, you can gradually try something and develop it into a vision. The French Impressionists also draw that they started out with only as a direction. The French Impressionists, too, started out with only a direction, which they modified little by little to create the Impressionism they wanted.
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