The “Creative Mind”, just the title intimidates me. Members of every family fall into a different group, the smart one, the dramatic one, the athletic one and many others. The “creative one” is an attribute that I doubt anyone would ever apply to me. My father was the creative one. One day he decided to take up painting, he was in his late 60’s he took a course at the YMCA but left half way through the first class because it moved to slowly. He sketched and painted many works over the next several years of his life. The first thing he painted brought offers from friends and customers and they thought he had been working on it for years. My dad could do anything he set out to do. One vacation we drove all the way home from Maine with a half rotted, spider infested oxen yoke in the backseat of the car. It became a room divider in our dining room and it looked phenomenal when he was done with it.
I know talking about my dad seems really off topic but while reading through Gardner’s chapter on the “Creative Mind” my thoughts kept returning to my dad. Gardner states that, “early views of creativity stressed either the role of the divine, or the roll of the dice”. (p. 79). I am not sure that Gardner debunks that view of creativity. Gardner makes an excellent point regarding failure and creativity when he writes, “Only a person who is willing to pick herself up and ‘try, try again’ is likely to forge creative achievement”. (p83). Not all are willing to do so. I remember watching my dad restoring antiques, landscaping, remodeling and various other activities. Looking back I recall that he made many mistakes but just kept working at something until he got it right.
As a student, I remember feeling very pressured to perform to my best ability. Failure was my dreaded enemy. In 5th grade I refused to go home with my report card because I had one “N” (needs improvement) on a math unit. The reason I had the “N” was that although I was able to produce correct answers, I could not follow the proper steps to get there. I was actually afraid to go home because my father would be very disappointed in me. It is interesting that my dad is the one who fostered my creative mind in other areas. I had to learn and keep house at 10 years old. My father praised my efforts, made suggestions and helped me understand at which step in the process I had made an error (apparently when the cookbook says bake the chicken for 45 minutes they mean if it is already defrosted). Here and working in the garden with my father, I could make mistakes. I learned from those mistakes and as I grew older I became more comfortable with failure and the opportunities it provided for future success. I learned this from observing a model of creativity, being allowed to make mistakes, being praised for my accomplishments and innovative ideas all while working at an activity removed from the rigidity of academics. Gardener lists all of these as parts of the formula for nurturing the “Creative Mind” (p86).
There are so many digital tools out there that can help develop and nurture the “creative mind”. YouTube and sites like it come immediately to mind. A student can go to this site and pull up a video on almost any subject he is interested in and find tutorials, viewer’s comments, related videos, viewer created examples, how to’s. YouTube offers videos of other creative folks modeling or performing creative tasks . Students can search freely and not worry about whether or not they are being judged. They can also create their own videos and share their creations. The videos are mostly amateur and don’t require any expertise. Students can get feedback for the ideas they present in their videos. YouTube would satisfy most, if not all of the essentials Garner describes as nurturing to the “Creative Mind”.(p. 86)
Gardner, H. (2006). Five minds for the future. Harvard Business Press.
No comments:
Post a Comment