Saturday, January 29, 2011
Creativity and education
As a returning college student, I discovered that somewhere along the path of my life, I had misplaced the confidence I had as a young student about school. I needed to rediscover the faith and believe, truly believe, that if I applied time and effort to my studies, I could indeed still learn new things. Sir Ken Robinson comments in a video clip, "In education, creativity is as important now as literacy and numeracy." He goes on to say that "everyone has immense creative capacity" evident especially in young children who still have a great "confidence in their perceptions." I have discovered that today, as an adult with multiple years of experience in my wake, I am still most successful in school when I am in touch with my inner child. When I hold an attitude of excitement and impatient anticipation about learning something new, I cast away the suspicious and cynical voices that can sometimes greet the innovations in knowledge and technology. When I trust that my perceptions are valid and are a product of my entire life experience, my authentic creativity has room to be expressed.
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I too appreciated Ken's comments and confidence in our capacity for creativity. Trusting ones own creativity and perceptions can be a real learning curve for a lot of us and apparently you have acquired that and seen that as a necessity in your life. Yeaaa!
ReplyDeleteAmy W.
You've tapped into a very different concept here than I have read in other blogs - life experience. That's on the tip of the Marylhurst iceberg of critical elements in adult learning. I'm curious how you see yourself being creative today versus when you were a child. I'd also like to challenge your thoughts about creative perception. What is creativity? How does it help you grow? Or does it help at all?
ReplyDeleteSorry for the late comment, trying to get caught up. I agree that you have found a completly new direction of concept in your post compaired to others, including myself. I like that you directly quoted the clip in your responce for evidence in what you are saying here.
ReplyDeleteI love that you are aware of how powerful your inner child can be! You are very insightful! Great work!!
~Lindsay Coombes
I think that all of us feel the need to be creative -- perhaps even 'must' be creative to feel alive. And even if we are not aware of it, creativity finds a way to express itself.
ReplyDeleteWhen I was in the 4th grade, we drew a picture with crayons about each of the chapters that we read in our readers, and then bound them with string into a book. I got an A++ on the project and fancied myself to be an artist. Then in 5th grade, when I couldn't draw a recognizable horse, my bubble was burst.
Now fast forward to adulthood and my job in a hardware store, I made window displays and constructed "people" out of various pieces of tin and buckets. My point? I think that no matter where we are, or what we are doing, something creative will find expression. In the construction industry, the tradesmen "ply their art" with wood, wire and cement. It was very satisfying to be part of creating and building, and maintaining and repairing. Being creative can be finding solutions to problems, building something new, repairing something old, influencing the next generation, the list goes on.
For as many years as I can remember, I buy myself and two of my closest friends a new box of crayons every September at the start of a new school year. With a sniff I am transported back in time to a moment when I sat with a box of crayons and a blank piece of paper and felt the spark of creative confidence and experienced the magic. ~Nadine
"And now let us believe in the new year that is given us - New, untouched, full of things that have never been." Rilke