Clearly, the class needed a way to get in touch with its own hopes and dreams

Paulson asked each student to bring a wire coat hanger to class the following day, and the first "visualizers" were born. The hangers were bent any way the students chose, so long as they could be worn on their heads in order to receive visions of their future. Today, class members plan ahead and bring all sorts of materials to school to decorate their vision receivers, which have become much more sophisticated. Paulson's only stipulation is that only found objects can be used. Nothing can be bought.

Students wear their contraptions for an entire day (they get points for doing so). In Paulson's English class, they get time to fantasize about possibilities for their own lives-living somewhere else, holding a particular job, or whatever-and then write about that fantasy (Career Choices, page 14). In other classes, teachers allow five or ten minutes on that day to pose a question related to their subject, and students again imagine a solution and write it down. They receive credit for their work in every class.

Although the hats are formally used only on this day, Paulson keeps them in her classroom, and students have permission to wear them "whenever they feel the need." It gives them "a right to be playful," Paulson says, and also breaks down barriers that can hold a young person's imagination in check.
What a wonderful way to help students begin to get in touch with their own visions of their future.

Congratulations, Linda, on a fabulous idea!