Teaching for Creativity (3/17)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iG9CE55wbtY
https://www.teachthought.com/learning/teaching-art-or-teaching-to-think-like-an-artist/
I really enjoyed watching these two videos about teaching for Creativity. Especially because that idea, the idea of teaching to think like an artist, is what makes me want to be an art teacher. More than my ability to draw or compose images, I value my way to view the world, problem solve, and make (often unexpected) connections. This is really what it means to be an artist. Just like a good joke, art is pleasurable because it is surprising. The artist put things together that maybe wouldn’t normally go together, used colors that maybe no one else used at the time, etc. Artists must be brave in making these decisions because they are not usually the norm. And to be brave, one must embrace experimentation, play and making mistakes! What happens when we view mistakes as opportunities instead of knocks to our ego?
This often feels difficult to implement for a couple of reasons. The first is, it seems that students already have it ingrained in their mind that they must follow what the teacher does and any deviation is “bad”. If I say I’m drawing a certain thing, I automatically have a bunch of kids copying me even if it was an open ended question. Their other teachers teach to have them follow directions and replicate their behavior so sometimes it seems confusing to them when I try to push them to experiment.
The other reason is related to the previous reason. Because it’s the norm to teach for compliance instead of creativity, I even find myself sometimes making lessons that check more for compliance than creativity! I’m working on a lesson right now about making New Yorker inspired still lives but halfway through the lesson I realized all the student works were so similar and it was because of how I structured the lesson! Reflecting on my lesson, I want to give students more examples and ways to experiment with their work. How can they play with scale or texture or design in a way that makes their work unique? How can I challenge them to not just award their peer who’s good at representational drawing but their peer who decided to run with a concept that no one else even thought about? Even though it is challenging, I believe more than ever that to teach for creativity is critical to creating socially engaged, socio-emotionally healthy citizens.