Apr
10
Creative Firewalls?
April 10, 2007 | | 1 Comment
I often ride my bike into work and when I am on my bike I seem to come up with my best lesson plan outlines. Today I couldn’t finish a thought because my mind was flush with quotes from Sir Ken Robinson’s TED conference presentation called “Do schools kill creativity?” We do a lot of drawing in my class after and during reading assignments. When the year began, the whole class would all raise their hands and try to explain to me that they were not good artists and that they did not want to loose points for drawing stick figures. As the year has gone and they have realized that I am not judging their drawing but using it to better understand their comprehension. They have now begun drawing more and more detailed images that they are proud of.
Somewhere along their educational careers our students stopped believing in their creative ability and the world is at a loss because of it. If you haven’t seen Sir Robinson’s presentation please take a look – it is fantastic. (It’s about 20 minutes long but it is well worth it)
When I arrived in my classroom and started putting the finishing touches on todays lesson plans I was pulled back to the Robinson speech. My lessons are pretty good, full of hands on activities that engage all of my students in some way. I began setting up the first post for a new classroom blog and started thinking about how much they could do with it and how few opportunities they have in school to use their creative talents. They go home, though, and create elaborate and interactive MySpace and Facebook accounts. They shoot complicated and engaging videos that they post on You Tube and other open source web sites. They ARE very creative and intelligent but we do not always allow them to use their wonderful creativity within our classrooms. They need to be prepared for their futures we need to help them get there. I opened up one of my favorite websites and saw this Strong Bad e-mail. I speaks (loosely) to how our additude towards certain technological tools can effect student creativity. Have we put a Fire-wall around our kids creative thoughts as well?
Comments
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I think you bring up a good point about creating firewalls in our own classrooms. Sometimes I get so stuck on a particular idea, or skill, that I can’t see any other way than my own to achieve success.
Thankfully, I have creative control over the curriculum in my classroom. I’m free to change, adapt, and experiment in order to find new ways of getting to our goal.
I admit I have bias about places like MySpace, etc. First, because I don’t use them. I feel like I’m too old or something… Second, because I know those are places kids go and bully each other. Perhaps instead of shunning these options, I can find ways of understanding them in a way that would be useful in my classroom.
Another consideration, what an interesting way to build relationships with the students. It might be easier for some students to express their reactions to readings, etc. in a blog situation than in front of the whole class.
There are all kinds of possibilities!!