Savoring Jingoro's Sculpture

Source: "Something You Forgot... Along the Way"
The story illustrates how one thinks beyond the box and cleverly using resources to create the "X" factor!

We could easily draw a parallel of the contexts in the story as well as in real life.
In the story, it's about the competition about how skilful two master sculptors are! Well, both are comparable! In terms of the artefacts they produced. Does that sound familar?

However, here's what distinguished one from another:
The master, Hidari Jingoro won the competition because he had taken into account his "intended audience" when he started his work, and cleverly made use of a different material (that look similar to the other) that connected well with his "intended audience".

I think, the moral of the story is not so much of being "clever" to use a different resource or material, but it's the thinking behind the act... when one takes into consideration the intended user/ audience of the action... Many a time, we fulfil a task (especially those that require one-time effort) for the sake of meeting the assessment requirement; how often do we move into connecting the work done to the real authentic audience or user? In school, we craft performance task such that students have the 'authentic audience' in mind when working on it. How many would keep this in mind when this "authentic audience" is not reflected in the rubric? I wonder.