Models of Creativity
Carolyn Lake
A situation where my creativity was inhibited
I loved to draw flowers and trees when I was in the eighth grade with paint brushes, sometimes I would draw them made of hearts, but that was not acceptable to my art teacher who said that we should use pencils to draw the work first and then paint the picture. I was pretty good at it and quit drawing because she said that my work was not correctly done because I did not do it how she instructed us to. She said that I should draw trees and flowers where they looked real instead out of hearts. I knew that in the real world trees and flowers were not made of hearts, but I could have grown up to be an artist who designed cards for birthdays, Christmas, and valentines with funny drawings on them. When I buy any type of cards it's the drawing and words that made me purchase the card. She would enter other students paintings into art contests that the school would have and never enter any of my pictures that I had drawn. I felt like I was supposed to be encouraged instead of disciplined or talked down to. In the NACCCE report, it states that (1) "Teaching for creativity aims at encouraging: openness to new and unusual ideas, and to a variety of methods and approaches." and (2) "In teaching for creativity, teachers aim to: encourage self-expression that is oriented towards a given task." (Robinson, 1999, pg 105) In my case, neither of the strategies were supported by my art teacher who felt like I was taking my imagination of trees and flowers to far. She told us to create and that's exactly what I did letting my creativity flow.
Why do we need creativity?
Ken Robinson: Do Schools Ignore Talents? (Learning World S4E39, 2/3)
References
Robinson, K. (1999). All our futures: Creativity, culture and education [Report]. Retrieved from http://sirkenrobinson.com/pdf/allourfutures.pdf
http://www.shutterstock.com/s/heart+shaped+trees/search.html?page=1&inline=132777956