Wandering New York City before Christmas, I made a few serendipitous discoveries. One was coming across Madeleine L’Engle’s acceptance speech for the 1963 Newberry Award (for her classic children’s book A Wrinkle in Time). In her speech, she was 50 years ahead of the curve, decrying how standardization was pushing schools to create kids who come out the same, like a tray of muffins. Her answer was to be sure kids have free access to great imaginative literature. Good plan.

I also picked up a small book with author Neil Gaiman’s “Make Good Art” speech to the graduates of the Philadelphia University of the Arts (see video version below). Like L’Engle, Gaiman rails against letting the status quo define what is possible. Among his bits of advice: “If you don’t know it’s impossible, it’s easier to do. And because nobody’s done it before, they haven’t made up rules to stop anyone from doing it again.” Also, “If you’re making mistakes, you’re out there doing something.” He ends his call to make good art with a plea to take risks and “make interesting, amazing, glorious, fantastic mistakes.” Heretical thoughts, indeed!

If we are going to avoid baking trays of muffin-like students, we need to find ways to support kids (and ourselves!) in these mistake-filled adventures into the seemingly impossible.