The Art Education world prides itself on how it develops creativity in students. My thinking is that what most art educators think of as "creativity" is anything but. Giving someone a paper plate "Mask" and a few markers and then telling them to "be creative" doesn't often produce exciting, original work. Showing a sample project--I hate the "project" word but that's another rant for another time--doesn't result in creative solutions, either. Students have great difficulty in not copying the teacher.
Part of the problem is that in other classrooms there are right and wrong answers and it is hard for students to realize that in an art setting this rule doesn't much apply. It's also true that most art specialists are not artists and therefore not as attuned to the concept of creativity as an important part of an art lesson in the first place.
Creativity comes from being encouraged to take risks and combine dissimilar things or ideas in a new way. With art lessons that embrace experimentation, not product, there is a greater chance for creativity than with recipe-style lessons.
If you are an art teacher, try to make your students comfortable with the idea that you don't have a clue what they are going to produce. A rule of thumb for me is: if you know what your students' work is going to look like, it's probably not an art lesson. It may have value in terms of following steps, working with tools and materials and looking great on a bulletin board, but it's not helping anyone become more creative.
Part of the problem is that in other classrooms there are right and wrong answers and it is hard for students to realize that in an art setting this rule doesn't much apply. It's also true that most art specialists are not artists and therefore not as attuned to the concept of creativity as an important part of an art lesson in the first place.
Creativity comes from being encouraged to take risks and combine dissimilar things or ideas in a new way. With art lessons that embrace experimentation, not product, there is a greater chance for creativity than with recipe-style lessons.
If you are an art teacher, try to make your students comfortable with the idea that you don't have a clue what they are going to produce. A rule of thumb for me is: if you know what your students' work is going to look like, it's probably not an art lesson. It may have value in terms of following steps, working with tools and materials and looking great on a bulletin board, but it's not helping anyone become more creative.
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