What's the point?

"I will only say this once, so listen carefully," my instructor announced. "I want you to take a piece of paper and make a point. When you are done, hang it up on the wall."

My mind instantly jumped into overdrive, asking questions it knew pointless to actually physically voice. What kind of point is she looking for? An arrow? A statement? What should I use? A pencil? A pen? Some of this nifty paint that was on the supply list I received at the orientation for this continuing professional development course in graphic design? Then, a moment of enlightened clarity reminded me of my high school math classes; where a point was just a dot, a simple dot. Of course! This was clearly the easiest solution to the problem posited by the instructor. Also the most logical. First class, first assignment, a place to start. Where does anything begin? At a single point.

I drew a small dot in the middle of the page and pinned my paper to the cork board wall. I was the first to make my point.

Each of my classmates glanced up from their blank papers to see what I hung up; pencils frozen in their hands, confusion written on their faces. It was your typical first-day-of-class jitters: no one wanted to be singled out as being wrong. I was not surprised to see four other dots next to mine when all the papers were hung. But I also wondered whether there was any creativity in this design class.