Einstein's Dreams

There was a fiction book I read many years ago called “Einstein’s dreams”  As the defiant but sensitive young genius is creating his theory of relativity, a new conception of time, he imagines many possible worlds.

In one chapter at 5pm a bell rings in the town and all people get up from their desks with two pieces of paper; a shopping list and a map to the market then to their home. They go to the market and buy everything on the list and follow the map home. They knock at the door of their home and their spouse opens the door and lets them in. They eat dinner together as a family but do not languish at the table talking about the children or work but rather run upstairs to their bedroom.

For in this world, there is no memory.

In cafes outside people feverishly are writing in their diaries so they will remember what they did the day before. At certain ages the diaries are too big for the elderly to read in their entirety and so they just focus on certain periods of their youth.

“I used to be a ballerina!” exclaims on customer, “Hey, I used to be a marine!” retorts another. With the same excitement as if they are reading about this for the first time.

Perhaps routine breeds boredom.

We see the same excitement in the homes with the kids when we introduce them to new things. Today we have 5 year olds learning colors and numbers and animals online. A month ago we left them on lesson 1 and a month later some have reached Lesson 18 on their own.

The Junior high school kids, some of whom do not attend school due to various reasons, took their career assessment tests and rather than not having memories, their excitement was seeing a possible future. “HEY, I can be a teacher!” “WOW, it says I could be a banker!” It is this light in the future of planning their own possibilities that makes the work worth doing.

We finished with setting their SMART goals, 3 months; 6 months; one year and three years with the homework of telling us how they will achieve those goals next time.

On the horizon; speed typing, English lessons, keyboard practice and learning about the MacBooks they have received by visiting APPLE for a Field Trip.

Planning futures

Endless possibilities