To Save The Paper Or To Save Creativity, This Is The Question

The new generation is far more environmentally aware than we ever were. They are born in a time after 'the Inconvenient Truth'. We had water crises even when we were kids, but there wasn't enough consensus on the means to save the environment. But today's kids, all thanks to Al Gore, know not to waste, like never before. Save paper, save water... oh! The world is wailing under human exploitation, and children of today seem to be saving every bit of it that they can, in their own little ways. My little one will run to any dripping or open tap in public and turn it off. She cannot bear the sight of water leaking. If she hears me honking while driving, she will protest. She is the first to remark about a plastic grocery bag, if I dare to take one, that is. 

Save paper!!! How? We express through it! Unless the entire future generation forgets to write and only types, onto holographic keyboards, projected from their tiny wearable or implanted devices. But what of origami, painting, art work and the rest? How far can we take the save paper drive? It hit me on the face, when conducting a session with kids on 'Expressing Oneself'. I asked each kid to tear a piece of paper from their notebook and do whatever they felt like, with it. In a group of five, two chose to make an Origami art, two others drew on their pieces of paper, a natural instinct. One nine year old, wrote her name and introduction on one fourth of the page, leaving the rest blank. And I was tempted to ask her why.

She said that, those who made origami had wasted paper, this was the same response from those who chose to draw on the paper. Regarding the artwork she was not sure, she just thought of writing because, "it is a better use of the paper" that was a young conservationist talking. I gathered that this mind-set needed to be further explored. I grabbed one origami and one art piece in my hands and waved it at them next to each other and asked them, which seemed to be a waste of paper at all. The kids looked at them all keenly for a few seconds. Their most discerning thoughts at work in those moments. Only then it dawned upon them... that both drawing and origami were basically an art form, expressed with paper. Each one completely expressed the artists' feeling or thought. I then asked the kid who wrote the introduction, why was the introduction only on a quarter of the page, did she have a plan to use the rest of it too...? She had understood the point and so had the others. In times to come, I hope each one of them will confidently express themselves using paper, in any way they wish.

The question is, how do we judge wastage of paper with kids? They need complete independence to use the paper the way they please. Why push them to use it in one preferred way and to ignore the others? A piece of paper once written on or drawn on or cut into an art, is a used resource. Most of those writings are not really used, a large volume of them are practice material, rough draft etc. Largest volume of them are not stored, after they are used for their intended purpose. The most amount of menace is caused by fliers and advertisements, the fancy gilt edged multi page ads from the builders and developers causing the maximum amount of damage. Somebody must stop them from damning the papers. Our stereotypes about the best usage of paper may only hold our children back in their imaginative drive and from being an 'out-of-the-box-thinkers', that each of us wish for our children to be!!

I have a seven year old conservationist at home. But I get bogged down by paper fans all over my home, and paper boats and paper cuttings of tickets, passes and the works, and paper cards and invitation cards, oil pastel on paper and crayon and colour pencil on paper, even some stories and stencils, and not to forget paper stars. Sometimes the unguarded exclamation escapes my lips, 'do not waste papers'!! But now I know I should refrain.

For a seven year old, every bit of paper is being used. They do not have the concept of misuse as yet. I know she is not tearing them wantonly, she is making art out of every bit! Those artworks may not look that mature or useful to me, but to her they her expression at its best. And to me she is the most important ingredient of the environment!!

Dear Readers, these are my observations and learning from being a mother and from once-upon-a-time being a kid myself. Please share your feedback and thoughts. Please also read "It is Okay to Cry"