Creativity, more than a EDU buzzword
The other day I was at a conference. Teachers are often at conferences, professional development sessions, meetings, online, Twitter Chats, or TeachMeets, to improve and hone our practice. After the session I was chatting with a participant who said,
“You know, the only thing I care about in these sessions is if I can change something today. I want to take one thing; one tool, tip, or trick back with me on Monday and use it immediately in my classroom.”
As I have often been reminded as a presenter and consultant that what teachers really want is that Monday morning jolt to their practice, I nodded vigorously.
I nodded, but my nod bothered me, all night and into the next day. It sat heavy with me. Something about that nod signified a disconnect with what I truly believe about learning. That nod was a lie.
We tell students to have a growth mindset, we encourage them to be risk-takers. Since 2007 we have collectively nodded our heads 47,307,998 times in agreement at Sir Ken Robinson’s assessment that schools have killed creativity.
We like and share meme’s on Twitter and Instagram that encourage us to increase creativity in our students- after all it is listed as Tony Wagner’s number one survival skill for the 21st Century. We read articles in Edu blogs about the need for creativity to be infused into our teaching and learning.
But then, we attend professional development that works to train, retrain, or expand on the same specific skills we engage in everyday. Often schools ask for proof of concept before teachers embark on new types of learning. They ask, how will this impact your classroom practice? How will this immediately help your learners succeed? That dialogue becomes part of our inner refrain as we ask, what is the tool, tip, or trick I can use on Monday?
But the truth is, change is incremental. And learning is not so immediate. Creativity should be more than a buzzword on social media. It is a mindset, an attribute that has skills that can be developed. It needs play, exploration, practice, feedback, and failure in order to become part of our praxis.
As an artist I would play with an idea for months. I would be exposed to something new and it would become a pearl of an idea over time. Sometimes I had no idea where it would go- but I knew it was going to be impactful, meaningful, and make change in the world. Sometimes there is no proof of concept- sometimes you just need to get gritty so you can make a pearl.
When we are able to expose ourselves to new learning, uncomfortable areas, and exciting unknowns we increase our own creative capacity. This in turn becomes the catalyst for how we design learning experiences within our classroom.
For instance, the maths in graffiti is complex. Artists, such as Scape Martinez use math to plan the supplies required for his artwork as he discusses in this video from the Center for Asian American Media. Teachers can learn from Scape to design an experience that requires students to explore calculating the area of a large letter to be painted, creating their own design, and determining how much spray paint they would need to paint it. To be successful students must find the area of shapes and be able to use a constant of proportionality to find proportional relationships. Authentic maths learning like this relates to the Common Core standards, the IB Middle Years Program, and the National Standards for Mathematics.
Additionally, students could learn how scale factor and measurement are an integral part of the mural design process in graffiti, challenging their ideas that math is boring, or useless by placing mathematical concepts within STEAM, transdisciplinary learning, and real world contexts.
How about language? The act of doing graffiti as a kinaesthetic linguistic and visual poetry pushes student ideas out of libraries, galleries, and museums — traditionally elite locations and creates accessible and democratic discourse on the street. The debate of graffiti as art or vandalism leads to socratic seminars rich in the development of empathy and service to the community.
The term ‘graffiti’ finds its etymology in the Greek word ‘graphien’, meaning ‘to write’, but parallel language used in the seemingly disparate worlds of literature and graffiti art extends well into a contemporary context. Within their own community, graffiti artists are referred to as writers and the more complex artworks they create are known as pieces. When enquiring about their creative practice, a graffiti artist will be asked what do you write? Exposing students to this type of writing opens the practice of ‘doing’ writing into visual and presentation literacy, art and culture, rhythm and rhyme, colour theory and maths, as well as social justice. Graffiti is rich and powerful creative learning. It is theory that is alive.
So where to start? First we need to challenge ourselves as educators to learn in creative ways. We can’t just talk the walk. This is why Level 5 designs learning experiences for youth and adults to challenge their creative selves.
Our goal is not only to inspire teachers to change pedagogical practice, but to provide the space to explore what that change may look like. This is the place to grow as a practitioner, not for a one off tip, trick, or tool- but as a wholistic contemporary practitioner becoming the type of learner we want to model for our students. We want creativity to be much more than a buzzword.
If you are interested in challenging your creative self or those of your students or children, join our Graffiti and Street Art Workshop October 13 & 14th at Level 5. For ages 13+
Check out our event page for more information and to sign up today.
Did you find this article interesting, or useful? Please give us some applause below and share it with others :)
