a creative manifesto
My afternoon of painting got me thinking about what I personally need to enable me to be creative. Everyone’s creatity is different and what works for some undoubtably won’t work for others. A key aspect in enabling creativity is space, the need for a clear, personal space to let yourself go and be at you most creative. For me, time isn’t necessarily an important factor as I can often be creative when I have very little free time to myself and I find myself drawing very pretty pictures when I have an essay to write…! I do think I stuggle when faced with the freedom to be creative. When Sophie set us the task in the first seminar to write about absolutely anything we wanted I found it really hard to think of something. Even when painting I have to have someone tell me what to paint otherwise I would never make the decision. Another important factor, especially within education is encouragement. Certainly in school, without the encouragement of teachers, parents and peers, I would have struggled to be creative in any aspect of my work.
a creative saturday afternoon…
Saturday afternoon was a bit boring so I decided to get my poster paints out! (im a 5 year old in a 21 year old’s body!) I’d also decided that my house could do with some pretty pictures! Apart from filling an otherwise uneventful Saturday afternoon that I probably would have spent in bed I found it quite relaxing and it made me think about what situation I need to be in to be creative! As you can see from the picture I can’t draw but I suppose that doesn’t really matter! I’d recommend an afternoon of painting to anyone…
Creativity in Education: Is there any point?
After researching some blogs on google about creativity in education I found some interesting views on whether or not creativity should be present in education.
OIne blog that I found was about 21st Century Education. http://students2oh.org/2008/01/22/21st-century-education/ The author holds the view that in todays changing world of work it will no longer be sufficient enough for people to have simply passed exams in the academic subjects at school. The education system of the 21st century will be learner centred and focused on producing creative learners rather than nurturing the skill of rote learning. With ever progressing technology that can give us the answers with no thinking involved, students are no longer just required to be able to apply the skills they learnt in school to the appropriate situation, more thinking needs to be done. As a result of this, employers are now looking for people and favouring those who are creative. People who are able to demonstrate their ability to problem solve and face new and different challenges and to also be able to work and learn on their own.
Am I creative?
I found today’s session extrememly interesting but it made me question my own creativity even more! During the discussion about what we thought creativity felt like, I felt drawn to the extract of the ‘marshy shore’, mainly because just before I fall asleep and I am in a dream like state I feel I am at my most creative. In this state I feel I can let myself go a little and my imagination becomes it’s most active during the day! I still found it really difficult to describe my own creative side though. Like others in the group I couldn’t really even think of a specific time or moment that I had been creative or made something that I felt showed any creativity. Looking around my room now I can see that I might not actually have the lack of creativity taht I thought. Photo-boards that I’ve put together, silly things like my door sign and even the way I have arranged my room all show creativity in some sense…I suppose I’m more creative than I thought!
1st Week Creativity
I think I’ve eventually worked out how to blog…just about! I find the concept of blogging quite strange and I’m not entirely sure what to write about!
The lecture on Tuesday made me think about how diverse creativity actually is. At first I just thought that I’d chosen the module cause it sounded interesting and then when we were asked to say why we had chosen it, I realised that there was more to it than that. Having an interest in primary education and wanting to be a primary school teacher eventually, I am interested in the ways that children at that level not only learn through creativity but also the way that creativity can be developed through education.
I think Tuesday also made me realise that although I have always been quite creative in the art sense, there are still aspects of my creativity that are slightly supressed. I found the writing exercise really difficult to do, the freedom of being able to write about anything was quite daunting to me!
I’m looking forward to learning more about creativity and younger children both in and out of the school setting. I am also looking forward to developing my own creativity.
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