An uncreative blog

Last week we visited the art gallery, this was a good opportunity to see examples of some talented creativity.  Our idea for a task to develop creativity was to get the students of a school to pick three pieces of art, one a portrait, one an artefact, and one a scenery.  Then to use these to write a story linking the three, so they would have to be creative in writing the story and imagining ideas that would link them together. I thought some of the ideas were really good, and I think that it is interesting how seeing examples of creativity can help get people in touch with theirown creativity.

Sadly I have not spent any time being creative this week and dont really have much to blog about…but i havent blogged for a long time so I am going to try to think of something.  I think its strange, and I think someone else has said this that it is harder to blog when you feel you need to rather than when you just decide to.  I feel like I should write a blog tonight because we have the last lectuire with sophie tomorrow and I havent blogged for ages…but I dont have anything to say.

I am going to leave it at that…an uncreative blog.

creative manifesto…and creative times

I think that we were meant to blog about a creative maniesto which we created in the lecture last week….so here are some factors which I think help creativity:

• Encouragement from those around you
• Freedom to find your own personal route or take on something
• Relaxation to let you do things as you want without pressure to conform
• Plenty of time and space in which to create
• Positive attitudes towards what you have doen from those around you

I think for me to be more creative the main thing would be to set aside some time, when I am free of work and other commitments I tend to waste my time doing pretty much nothing, but I could use this time for creativity.  I also need some encouragement and my own personal attitude…poster paints are not just for kids!!!!

However I have produce one creatove thing this week which I took a picture of to put on here…me and my friend went to a meeting for student action group; ‘Minds in Motion’ and sampled some of the activities the volunteers with that group use.  One section was arts and crafts and in a agroup we each had to make a leaf and decorate it, then they were all put together on one big sheet to make a tree.  So here are the leaves (mine is blue and my friends is yellow)!!

How do we encourage creativity?

I was just thinking about creativity and how many different ways it comes into life.  I have never really thought of myself as a creative person, but when I think about it I think it comes into life in so many ways.  Surely I use it regularly? 

So I have been trying to think about examples of how you could be creative and how this could be encouraged in schools, but also how it is discouraged.  For example, even in a music or an art lesson often students are given a specification to reach by the end of the session or week.  Every lesson in schools has a curriculum and a plan for what has to be achieved, leaving little room for creativity.

So how can lessons be more creative? I remember being allowed to make posters displaying what I had learnt in science, and I suppose to a degree this is creativity.  But maybe just being given an instrument in a music lesson or some materials in an art lesson would allow the student to be more creative and really think of their own ideas?!  Or perhaps in science being taught the information then allowed to display it in any form they feel appropriate would be creative?

I don’t know…I think I am going to go in search of ways to encourage creativity!

Going back to basics!

After reading the articles for tomorrows seminar I got thinking about the lack of creativity in school.  I feel like I have been cheated out of having the opportunities to be creative due to a continual stream of exams.  I know that there is a well known debae around assessment in schools, or the emphasis put on it, but thinking about it lead me to think about creativity.  Take for example SATs which are given to children aged 7, 11, and 14.  These are in English, Maths, and Science.  But are generally the regurgetation of facts fed to the students by the teachers in order to gain the required level for their age.

I think back to primary schools, and how perhaps once or twice a week we would have and art session, but in this session we were generally given some materials and something to aim towards.  Maybe schools shoud implement a free afternoon in which students are creative in whatever way they want to be, using any materials of their own choice?

I agree that there is room for creativity within the work that children are given to some extent, but onl a small amount, they still have several barriers put up in order to direct them to the teachers desired outcome.  Surely being the most creative is starting with nothing and moving on to anything?

If I had some free time I doubt that now I would get the urge to write a poem or draw a picture, but maybe if children were encouraged do carry out these tasks in a limitless environment, all the way through their schooling, they would still feel much more enjoyment in doing them now. 

As for secondary school, in my experience very few students chose art or drama once we reached GCSEs and most of the other subjects  lacked creativity entirely due to the stress of learning the facts word-for-word and then being able to write them down in the correct boxes on the exam paper!

I feel that creativity is far from nurtured in any school subject, and that the lack of time spent being creative as a child results in a lack of enjoyment for such things later in life.  I dont know if I am speaking about an unusual personal experience, or if this was common throughout the country, but I feel that I was cheated out of expressing my own ideas through school, and that as students we became too accustomed to the exam fuelled learning process!

Creative Personalities

I found the session ont Tuesday quite interesting, especially the discussions about creaive personalities….I think that czikszentmihalyi’s ideas are interesting, but I don’t know if they really define a creative person!  I was firstly thinking that almost everyone could have some of the traits explained as being creative in his aricle, but on the other hand, I was wondering… do you have to posess these traits in order to be creative?

This lead me back to me previous post in which I was of the opinion that everyone was creative in some way, whicht hey probably are.  However the task carried out in the session made me wonder if there are some people who have such strictly regimented lives that they aren’t really ever creative?! For my poster I did a creative and a non- creative self, however I dont think I have really discovered my creaive side enough yet to define it, so the task probably saw me portraying my ideas of a creative person and a non creative person, but not necessarily myself.  

I am still unsure as to how creativity can be defined, I am sure that some people view it scientifically, by the parts of the brain a person uses, yet othersjust see general creative sparks in people.  But just because I dont sit around drawing pictures and making things during my free time surely doesnt mean I don’t have the ability to becreative, perhaps I just don’t useitofetn enough.

Moving on I found an interesing aricle linking creaivity to school discipline.

http://www.scribd.com/doc/321207/School-Discipline-and-the-Creative-Personality

This begins by listing some aspects that you would perhaps expect to be shown ina creative personality, but interestingly, also considering the personalitytraitsyou would expect to find in a non creative person.  I thought this was an interesting way to try to define creative personalitites.

I also find it interesting how the document links creativity to something which I would never have considered mathcing it with – classroom discipline!

What is Creativity?

This week’s lecture really got me thinking as I realised that I really have no idea what creativity is! If someone asked me to give them a definition I would have no idea what to say.  I think that this is mainly because there are so many ways in which people can be creative, aside from the obvious arts and crafts, I think there is an element of creativity to almost everything we do.  For example when cooking a meal, we dont always follow a recipe, so we must use some creativity in order to produce the food.  Therefore it is hard to narrow this broad term down to a short definition.

I think that this links in well with what I was saying in my last post.  I was wondering then how subjects such as maths and science could be creative, but now I am thinking that hardly anything is NOT creative.  Surely unless we are following a strict set of guidelines or instructions we are using some degree of creativity in everything we do? 

I have taken this quote

I define creativity is the act of turning new and imaginative ideas into reality. Creativity involves two processes: thinking, then producing. Innovation is the production or implementation of an idea. If you have ideas, but don’t act on them, you are imaginative but not creative.

from the following link

http://www.creativityatwork.com/articlesContent/whatis.htm

as one example of a definition of creativity, I like this definition as it is quite broad. 

This has really made me think about the ways in which people can be creative, and also made me realise, being a person who did not see them self as creative, that everyone is.  Creativity comes in so many forms, and must be used pretty much every day by everyone do some degree.  I think that people are creative without even realising it.

Creativity in Education – first lecture

Following the first lecture I think that i have more idea what to expect from this module.  I am particularly looking forward to learning the ways in which creativity can be developed through subjects such as maths and science in schools.  I think it will be interesting as I would not usually link these subjects to creativity! I am definately interested in how schools can change their teching methods to encourage creativity in children.

Hello world!

Welcome to your brand new blog at Edublogs.

To get started, simply log in, edit or delete this post and check out all the other options available to you.

There’s stacks of great supporting material too! Take time to view our some helpful introductory videos, read through our Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ) or stop by The Edublogs Forums to chat with other edubloggers.

You can also subscribe to our brilliant free publication, The Edublogger, which is jammed with helpful tips, ideas and more.

And finally, if you like Edublogs but want to be able to simply create, administer, control and manage hundreds of student and teacher blogs at your school or college, check out Edublogs Campus… it’s like Edublogs in a box, all for you.

Thanks again for signing up with Edublogs!