Are we really creative?

Source: ist.greenville.edu

Ten days ago I took part in a great webinar by Agnieszka Gągała from Szkolimy that was focused on creativity – you know it’s a great webinar when it’s 9 p.m. and you’re still having fun. We discussed the concept of creativity as a way of thinking characterised by originality, flexibility, fluency and elaboration, but we also took part in some games/exercises on creativity as well as original and lateral thinking (if you want to practice some lateral puzzles, you may want to have a look at one of my previous notes). I do recommend taking part in Agnieszka’s webinar, so whenever you see her workshops around, definitely join them! You can have a look at it here (Polish only, sorry!):

Apart from having fun, I was reminded of this famous TED talk by Ken Robinson, “Do schools kill creativity?” and the perfect statement regarding the role of creativity in education:

So I want to talk about education and I want to talk about creativity. My contention is that creativity now is as important in education as literacy, and we should treat it with the same status.

Now, creativity is one of the most important values for me, not only in teaching, but in everyday life. And, sadly, it’s one of the reasons I stopped working in public education system where I struggled to bring some fun into exam-oriented environment. I’m afraid our education system is so focused on tests and somewhat wrongly perceived linguistic competence, that there’s not enough place for communication skills, cross-cultural experiences and, well, having fun. Students are locked in classrooms with grammar books and vocabulary exercises instead of actually using the language, because the main goal of school is test preparation, and the main expectation of parents is that their child passes those tests. This is really sad, and I must admit I absolutely respect those teachers who fight to change this state of things.

I have been working with kids and teenagers for a few years now, and I must admit that one of the saddest things I’ve observed is the lack of creativity. When I meet new students it usually takes 4-6 weeks to make them think out of the box and it’s honestly quite heartbreaking for me, because I remember myself when I was their age, some weird ideas (when I was 16 I seriously planned to study mechanics and become a president) and I feel really sorry for children who are simply not used to balderdash, being constantly reminded to focus on their future career.

It is definitely easier to work creatively when you work in a private language school, and I love it – using those parts of books I like, bringing in fun, making students talk and actually have fun using the language they’ve acquired through grammar-and-vocabulary-exercises. One of the greatest compliments I’ve ever heard was when one of my students told me after our last classes: “you know, I’ve made progress, and I can speak English without fear… and I don’t even know when this all happened”. One of my personal highlights.

Being creative is the key to opening, unblocking someone else’s creativity – but I’m not really sure that being a “creative teacher” is enough, I’d say that being a creative human being is more important here. I believe we, teachers, should not only bring creative classroom activities, we should focus on unblocking this aspect in our students’ mindsets. I’m nor really sure that attitude is something anyone expects us to do, but in a world where creativity is clearly needed yet restrained by the career-focused environment, it’s the teachers that should take at least part of responsibility for students’ creative growth. After all, we’re here not only to share knowledge, we’re here to teach and there’s more to it than preparing creative games for the classes.

And I want to quote Sir Ken Robinson to finish my note:

We have to be careful now that we use this gift (of the human imagination) wisely (…). And the only way we’ll do it is by seeing our creative capacities for the richness they are and seeing our children for the hope that they are. And our task is to educate their whole being, so they can face this future. By the way – we may not see this future, but they will. And our job is to help them make something of it.

I’d love to know what you think about creativity and its importance – please, share your comments and if you liked my blog, follow it on Facebook.

We’re all Doctors Strange here :)

littlebitofthyme.com

 

Sometimes you get inspired by the weirdest things and in my case I blame it on the newest film by Marvel Studios – Doctor Strange. The film inspiration is nothing new in my life (remember Kung Fu Panda?), however after watching the film I came across a short article by a paramedic and all I could do was nod – and since it’s my blog, I feel like sharing my reflections with you – or rather noting them down so that I won’t forget them in the future.

People become teachers to share their knowledge. During our courses we’re being told that teaching is vital in the society, that it’s not a mere job, it’s a vocation. It’s partly true, I can’t deny it – but in this way every job is a vocation and we aren’t special flowers here. This not a job, but a vocation phrase is now more and more often used by those teachers who want to emphasise their superiority, by those parents who expect schools to deal with their children’s behaviour, by governments who apparently believe that vocation is so powerful teachers don’t need to be well paid (greetings from Poland!).

To be honest, this approach is one of the reasons I don’t work with the state educational system – I really and truly believe teaching is just a job. I love it, yes, I try to develop my teaching and DoSing skills, but when I get back home (and do some teaching-connected work, well, it does come with the job, doesn’t it) I’m not a teacher anymore, I’m a personnel of two cats, a whodunit reader, an RPG player – and it’s a gaming comparison that springs to my mind.

When we play games, we’re the heroes of the stories – just like in our life (only our life rarely includes dungeons or dragons), but in real life, when we do our teaching job, we’re not really heroes, we’re actually background to someone else’s life. Before we start teaching we’re told we’re the most important factor in the classroom, but we are not. Our classes, books, materials and ourselves are simply background to someone’s development. And it’s this particular student, and their (in my case linguistic) knowledge, and personal growth – that is the most important aspect.

I deeply believe that the most important role of a teacher is that of a facilitator, and once I realised that, I’ve become more open to my students’ actual needs, more likely to be more than a teacher – a partner on our way to get their knowledge. Not the most important person in the process, because this role belongs solely to the student.

I really do love teaching, and frankly, I enjoy being in the centre of attention that goes with teaching – but slowly I’m trying to put my students in the limelight, to let them shine and, to put it in a pretty RPG way: to become a quest-giver, encouraging students to take their own education as a quest.

And yes, this quest-giving is a job, because when the students have collected their party and went on the adventure, we’re still there, waiting for the next would-be adventurers to show them the way, equip them with weapons and bid them farewell, never taking part in the proper quest.

Instead of being told empty phrases about vocation, we need our own Ancient One to tell us this simple truth: It’s not all about you.