I am always thinking about creativity, and how to help foster it in my art room. Creativity is this thing that often seems intangible, and hard to put your finger on. How do we teach it, how do we encourage it, how do we understand it?
It can be very difficult to foster creativity in a school culture that seems set up to squash it. Everything is very structured at school, and that can make it difficult for creativity to thrive. Creativity demands some freedoms. I was reminded of the need for some freedom, in order to create when I recently read Red Tape, by George Couros.
Often my goal is to provide students with freedoms within structures. The more freedom I can give, the more room they have to be creative. I may not be able to change the system, but I can work to advocate for my students as best as I can within my environment while working long term to help schools move toward a different model. You can check out more about the current state of our schools by checking out Ken Robinson's TED talk on changing education paradigms.
Here are some ways that I work to foster creativity in my art room:
Starting the semester with building trust. Students are often anxious and fear to put their art out there. Art is so personal, and their skills are on display, right there for everyone to see. This can cause students to act out, pretending they have no art skills (not creating at all is better than getting made fun of). If I can move the culture of the classroom towards trust, and help students to understand that in here, we respect the efforts of others, we build each other up, students will be more comfortable being vulnerable. I have been looking into vulnerability and fear more, to help me better understand how to reduce students anxieties at school. If you want to know more, be sure to check out Brené Brown's TED talk on vulnerability. I also read her book, "Daring Greatly".
One trust building activity that I used this year was group challenges. Each group was challenged to create a piece with the most negative space and movement possible and were given a box of supplies to create a sculpture. I found that groups of 3 worked well. After the challenge was over, each group had one post it and had a vote to decide what group had best conveyed negative space and movement. After all groups had voted, we had a really good discussion. This activity really lightened the mood on the first day. Here is more on the activity.
I give freedoms whenever I can in order to make room for creativity. I do this by running a curriculum that is choice based. In some classes, that is modified choice, and in others, it is full TAB (teaching for artistic behavior). Giving students freedom means that their projects become more personal and meaningful to them, and when they are making choices about their projects, they are being creative, rather than me. My students still learn skills, but the main focus is the thinking, the ideas, the message or story the student wants to tell. I was reminded why this is important when reading Ian Sands article, "New Ideas in art; Destruction". In this article, Ian said, "The idea is to get the students thinking deeper about the concept of destruction, as opposed to having them simply drawing something that is broken."
I also make sure to help guide any discussion in the art room. I let students talk about things other than art (it's great for relationship building!), but if anyone is putting someone's art down, even jokingly, I am sure to step in, help with constructive criticism, and reminding them that we can't be creative if we are putting each other down. We do use criticism to help each other grow, but I have to teach the difference. One thing I like using to teach constructive criticism is the TAG method of critique. I love it because it's easy (and we are always short on time).
I have also tried to encourage students to move toward higher levels of creativity. I found a chart that had levels of creativity. I modified it slightly and started using in in my classroom. I hesitate to say, "no copying!" because for some students that is their comfort level, and gateway into more creative art. Having said that, I want them to move past copying to more original art, so we use this chart to reference what level they are at with creativity in their work.
Creativity is huge, and it takes a big skill set, and a lot of resources to tackle it, teach it, and assess for it. This is just some of what I am doing tcreativitycrativity in my art room. How about you? What are some ways that you foster creativity in your classroom?
It can be very difficult to foster creativity in a school culture that seems set up to squash it. Everything is very structured at school, and that can make it difficult for creativity to thrive. Creativity demands some freedoms. I was reminded of the need for some freedom, in order to create when I recently read Red Tape, by George Couros.
Often my goal is to provide students with freedoms within structures. The more freedom I can give, the more room they have to be creative. I may not be able to change the system, but I can work to advocate for my students as best as I can within my environment while working long term to help schools move toward a different model. You can check out more about the current state of our schools by checking out Ken Robinson's TED talk on changing education paradigms.
Here are some ways that I work to foster creativity in my art room:
Starting the semester with building trust. Students are often anxious and fear to put their art out there. Art is so personal, and their skills are on display, right there for everyone to see. This can cause students to act out, pretending they have no art skills (not creating at all is better than getting made fun of). If I can move the culture of the classroom towards trust, and help students to understand that in here, we respect the efforts of others, we build each other up, students will be more comfortable being vulnerable. I have been looking into vulnerability and fear more, to help me better understand how to reduce students anxieties at school. If you want to know more, be sure to check out Brené Brown's TED talk on vulnerability. I also read her book, "Daring Greatly".
One trust building activity that I used this year was group challenges. Each group was challenged to create a piece with the most negative space and movement possible and were given a box of supplies to create a sculpture. I found that groups of 3 worked well. After the challenge was over, each group had one post it and had a vote to decide what group had best conveyed negative space and movement. After all groups had voted, we had a really good discussion. This activity really lightened the mood on the first day. Here is more on the activity.
I give freedoms whenever I can in order to make room for creativity. I do this by running a curriculum that is choice based. In some classes, that is modified choice, and in others, it is full TAB (teaching for artistic behavior). Giving students freedom means that their projects become more personal and meaningful to them, and when they are making choices about their projects, they are being creative, rather than me. My students still learn skills, but the main focus is the thinking, the ideas, the message or story the student wants to tell. I was reminded why this is important when reading Ian Sands article, "New Ideas in art; Destruction". In this article, Ian said, "The idea is to get the students thinking deeper about the concept of destruction, as opposed to having them simply drawing something that is broken."
I also make sure to help guide any discussion in the art room. I let students talk about things other than art (it's great for relationship building!), but if anyone is putting someone's art down, even jokingly, I am sure to step in, help with constructive criticism, and reminding them that we can't be creative if we are putting each other down. We do use criticism to help each other grow, but I have to teach the difference. One thing I like using to teach constructive criticism is the TAG method of critique. I love it because it's easy (and we are always short on time).
I have also tried to encourage students to move toward higher levels of creativity. I found a chart that had levels of creativity. I modified it slightly and started using in in my classroom. I hesitate to say, "no copying!" because for some students that is their comfort level, and gateway into more creative art. Having said that, I want them to move past copying to more original art, so we use this chart to reference what level they are at with creativity in their work.
Creativity is huge, and it takes a big skill set, and a lot of resources to tackle it, teach it, and assess for it. This is just some of what I am doing tcreativitycrativity in my art room. How about you? What are some ways that you foster creativity in your classroom?
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