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by giving them the opportunity to be creative with special projects. I've done that myself with students learning Italian. For instance, I gave a "calendar project" in which I asked the students to make an imaginative display of the numbers, days, and months in Italian. Some of them made a beautiful calendar with pictures of Italy and others made a three-layered spinning wheel. One of my seventh graders made a jellyfish shaped display out of a hanger, string, and wrapping paper, with each tentacle representing a day, month, or number. The more assignments I give like this, the more I'm convinced they will gradually begin to value what the Greeks called "arte," or excellence in all fields of endeavor.

It's their excellence which has often inspired me as an instructor to try new techniques. As an enthusiastically creative citizen of the American nation, I pledge to continue doing everything in my power to inculcate students with a respect for themselves and their innate creative potential. Instead of being concerned so much with the "style" of learning, I shall continue to be more focused on the creative "substance" of education. This can be best summed in a phrase from Alfred Lord Tennyson's poem Ulysses,

"And this gray spirit yearning in desire
To follow knowledge like a sinking star,
Beyond the utmost bound of human thought."

Learn more about this author, Vincent Traina.
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