As a coach and avid photographer what I found in the pages was inspiration for my own creativity — and I hope for yours too.

As Christine experienced in her classroom of 4th graders, the book is a palate for the imagination and allows each of us to see that anything in our everyday lives can be a source for creative imagining. A snowy hillside and a pancake misfired from the pan to a stack of papers to grade or your car keys on the kitchen table. There is life in every object around us, all it takes is an extra moment to consider what it is saying/showing us.

When I hired my first coach in 2003, I did so to be more creative without leaving my day job. It took me in a lot of directions. The most profound one was to realize how I was already creative. You are too.

Have doubts? Well, for one, you are already creative in the classroom. Creating lessons to challenge the minds of your students, and the ability to rework them on the fly. Your classroom is not the only place you are creative though.

Where else? Maybe you are an artist. I can say for sure that you see the world in a unique way from everyone else you know. Whether it’s imagining the shapes of clouds while daydreaming out your window, or how you organize a grocery list based on the aisles of your local store, you come to the world in your own way.

To me, the beauty of Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs, is that it reminds us to take that time and look around. What are the things in your life that you take for granted? Look around you right now…go on. What everyday objects catch your eye? Look closer. What would they say, do, if they were suddenly animated in this moment? What other forms might they take before your eyes?

Imagination is not limited to the playground. It is in all of us. A muscle that we always have access to, even if it’s a little rusty. By tapping into it daily, just by stopping to look around, you have the opportunity for downtime, for inspiration and for connecting to the child inside. What could be more worthwhile than that?

In the case of the recent release of Sony Picture’s “Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs,” which was based on the 1978 children’s picture book of the same name by Judi Barnett and illustrated by Ron Barnett, I think there may be at least two explanations.  First, the book contains rich description, which I always loved as a teacher to inspire my students to write with vivid details.

Second, as is the case with so many wonderful children’s books, while Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs may seem like a simple picture book, it actually contains a great deal of complexity in its simple pages.  The concept of food falling from the sky is obviously creative, fun, and unique.  Imagine the possibilities!

While engaged in writing instruction with my 4th graders in Vermont several years ago, I asked the children to write their own, original versions of Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs.  Not surprisingly, they soared with this assignment, and it proved to be some of their best writing of the year.  The book itself already served as a perfect role model.  Then, I did some brief, explicit instruction on how to add lots of descriptive details about the food, and the results were incredible—delicious, really!  There is nothing like reading a story with excellent, image-filled description.  We took the simple concept of food falling from the sky, and allowed any complexities to flourish.

As teachers, I think there are powerful lessons to be taken away from this Cloudy recollection.  One idea that I can’t get out of my head is that teachers are always asked to reflect, yet are rarely shown how to reflect.

So, what is reflection, anyway? We all know it’s important, yet are we doing it?  Are we doing it correctly?  Even our website is called Reflective Renewal, for goodness sake!

Well, much of purposeful reflection comes from rich description, so in much the same way I love Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs for its descriptive nature and how it inspired my 4th graders to describe in vivid details, I ask teachers to do the same.  As educators, when we encounter a situation that requires reflection (it may be an issue, a conflict, a perplexity) first describe it in detail.  Until you have thoroughly described the situation, you cannot move forward to the next step, which is analysis.

Let’s face it—in order to really analyze a situation, one must first have all of the details. So, once a teacher has thoroughly described the situation, she may then analyze it.  This analysis may happen best in trusted community with others, so that several perspectives can be offered and considered.

Once some analysis has occurred, then the teacher can begin to take intelligent action and grow to move on to the next experience.  Moving forward in this meaningful way is much better than dropping a situation like a hot potato, or ignoring it all together.  With a little courage and support from others, we don’t need to avoid sticky situations, and we can move forward instead of staying stuck or even regressing.

So, let’s all take some inspiration from the imaginative, descriptive writing of Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs and our creative 4th graders when it comes to our own reflection.

To all of you readers out there– As teachers and as women, on what do you wish to reflect?  What’s going on in your lives that could use a gentle nudge from a supportive community?

If you’d like to read more about reflection, I published a brief article in 2004 entitled “How Does Collaborative Reflection Play a Role in a Teacher Researcher’s Beliefs About Herself and Her Teaching?: Discovering the Power of Relationships” that was published in The Journal of Natural Inquiry & Reflective Practice.