Pablo Picasso: always childlike
I think about Picasso a lot at work. Picasso once said: “All children are artists. The problem is how to remain an artist once he grows up.” It is like my personal mantra, a reminder, to stay childlike and curious all the time. Some might say I am lucky to work in the arts, where creative thinking is encouraged. Maybe. I certainly work with some amazingly creative people at NMC–but they aren’t all artists. Our accountant Marcie has amazing, out-of-the-box ideas. Some might say that because I got my BFA and became a painter, it means I am immersed in my creative life and am better suited for work as an arts educator. Maybe. But my artistic practice informs my work in education at NMC, all the time, even when I am budgeting, grant writing or doing data entry, not just when programming or working with students.
So how can any educator help their students be creative, even when they don’t self-identify as being an artist themselves? What is the benefit of teaching through the arts and asking kids to think creatively? How do artistic practices and thinking dispositions help scaffold learning? How can we think outside of the box using the curriculum in our classrooms? These are some of the questions I set out to explore as I co-hosted a session at the Calgary City Teachers Convention with my long-time friend and colleague, Carly DeBoice (Open Minds Coordinator at Science School, TELUS Spark) We wanted to show teachers accessible methods for helping students engage with science, language arts and music through creative, out of the box thinking. So, of course, we asked the teachers to become students and leave their comfort zone behind a little.
Blowing bubbles through found objects
We explored two activities, beginning with bubble making, a common early elementary science activity. First we removed any physical barriers to creativity and moved all chairs out of the way and laid down tarps on the banquet tables the Hyatt gave us. Setting up the physical space to allow for unincumbered exploration is key. It took a bit of coaxing to convince teachers they could get messy, but once they got started bubble mix and laughter was everywhere. Carly challenged us to make bubbles through straws (easy), pipe cleaners (bendy), CD’s (odd but suprisingly effective) and….. cheese graters! The table was full of a myriad of recyclables for our taking. How many different types of bubbles can you make? Which materials work best? What doesn’t work? Teachers explored and challenged themselves with minimal instruction and a lot of support from us; pushing themselves further and further with every new idea. What if?…
a box of foley; inspiration for sound
I led the second activity: an exploration of contemporary poetry through foley. I distributed a copy of Joy Harjo‘s poem Climbing the Streets of Worchester, Mass. to each person. No title . No author. I told the teachers nothing except to ask them to read it to themselves silently. Twice. Then we took turns reading it aloud; listening to our individual voices and their varying tempos, intonation etc.. Now keep in mind that poetry is tough for the best of us. Extra tough for teachers who “don’t get it” and have to teach it to students that usually also “don’t get it ” and most often “don’t care”. Most teaching of poetry in the classroom stops at reading aloud followed perhaps by a half-hearted discussion and then “let’s move on”.
But in our case we moved on to looking at the printed words on the page. I asked the teachers to describe what they saw. Huh? They were very brave. Together we discussed spaces, punctuation, capitals, absence of capitals, fonts etc… By talking about what we could see, and avoiding interpretation of content, the poem grew less and less daunting.
Next I brought out a box of foley I had collected from home and around NMC (My co-workers are a very accommodating bunch.) Broken hole punches, accordion files, bubble wrap, pots, spoons, deck of cards –anything goes. Foley is, by definition, “the process of recording sound effects on-the-fly as the picture plays or the script is read. Foley sound effects are often created from everyday household objects.” I asked the teachers to work in groups and create a sound illustration for the poem. In less then ten minutes. Of course, like any artistic product, it doesn’t have meaning if not shared and we did that for each other. The audience listened with eyes closed. We can hear better with eyes closed, did you know that?
Close your eyes to hear better: try it!
The discussion that came out of the workshop was amazing. One teacher expressed that she had never realized that by giving her students choice, like we gave her, they would be more engaged and retain more. A high school English teacher discovered that meaning can be found in poetry, without having to be told what it is about first. We explored ideas on how we could take the activity further, into other subjects and other art forms and with technology and we explored what some personal challenges were and how we over came them. Carly and I felt we left the teachers with a lasting impression knowing that they too could think as artists and scientists do: outside the box and creatively.
I believe that being creative is essential to being an effective educator. Fostering your own creative disposition and giving your self permission (non-judging validation) to explore, be curious, generate ideas and create– means that any one can learn to think and act like an artist. So how will you remain an artist, creative and free-thinking, even as you grow up?
