The Creative Spirit of Design
Creating!!!
I like that this article is about creativity and using your imagination, but it never says you have to teach creativity or be creative. It says you have to act creatively or be “creation-oriented.” Creative is one of those adjectives a lot of people are too modest or nervous to claim that they are so phrasing it that way a) makes being creative seem more possible and b) is much more reasonable to say to a group of people with confidence.
Being creation-oriented is how I want people to describe me as a teacher. Because it’s only my second year teaching, I do spend a lot of time still creating instructional tools and setting up learning experiences for my class. I thought it was because I’m still new, but there’s a chance it’s because creating things for my class to use is part of my own learning process. Even in the last few classes when we’ve had to create something as our final activity, I’ve found a dramatic change in my creative-ness. At the beginning, I found myself lacking ideas and not being able to express them completely. When we made the video the other night, I felt fired up and ready to go! I jumped right into the creative process. I think maybe at the beginning it wasn’t that I didn’t have ideas, I think it’s that I wasn’t in the practice of creating (as a student), and it took me some time to warm up and get going. I will definitely take that experience back to the classroom by understanding that students need repeated exposure to the creative process before they really use it meaningfully. I also wrote it into my PLP this year that my Professional Goal is to provide students with opportunities to create by meaningfully using technology at least once per unit, so it's on!
The article said this: “With disciplined effort, designers can re-make any situation into something that more closely resembles a desired state.” My school teaches the Success For All reading program, and I really hate it. I’m going to use this quote as motivation that if I work smart enough, I can still “teach SFA” without really teaching SFA. I’m not sure I have the energy to move that mountain of effort, but stay tuned. Maybe I’ll post it on my desk and look at it every time I feel like dying in the middle of SFA haha.
Another part of the creative spirit includes collaborating with those you know have different perspectives and being flexible enough to take on their ideas or implement them on the fly. One of the things admin told me about my school while I was interviewing was that I’d need to be able to change a lesson at the drop of a hat (as a combination of our state of constant organized chaos and also just, you know, being a teacher in general). Teachers have to be some of the most flexible people on the planet! I’d be shocked to find out they’re not. However, collaboration is a different issue. If you had asked me a few weeks ago what the most collaborative profession was, I would have said teaching. I feel like I’m in a constant state of getting opinions, asking questions, and seeking input from others (even if it’s one sided aka me stalking teaching instagrams). But I’ve heard several sources expressing in the last few weeks that teachers don’t like to share ideas, that we’re a very independently driven group. A friend of mine moved from 4th to 6th grade this year, and she’s said that interacting with secondary people this year is so different--nobody shares plans or resources, the advice and input isn’t so free-flowing. I’m wondering what all of your perspective is on the collaboration in education--overflowing or running dry?
I've met and worked with teachers who share freely, and others who protect their ideas, plans, and projects like they'll disappear if they're shared. My current team is amazingly willing to share ideas, though the time to meet and share out what we have or have created is extremely limited and must be planned for after school hours. We are definitely flexible, though. Nothing ever goes according to plan! I agree with your sentiment that I don't necessarily consider myself very "creative," but I like the idea of being "creation-oriented" and look forward to finding ways I can help my students create their learning.
ReplyDeleteWell you and Jon are very creative! Your video for Doodle Juice came out great!
ReplyDeleteI changed grades this year. In the last 7 years I have been working with teachers on my team that shared everything. It was wonderful! My last team was perfect, a well-oiled machine for the last 2 years. If one of us was sick we never used the emergency sub plans we pulled together and planned the day for that class in 15 minutes (including copies and finding read aloud books). We worked smarter not harder. During planning we each had our own jobs to help with creating lessons: one paced out the lessons in the calendar, one found the station ideas, and one (me) created the exit tickets, quizzes, and anything else digital that needed a face lift. That great team went off and did better things, one is using her masters as a reading specialist, the other is creating a new team in the same grade (she is great at that), and I am back in my happy place (kindergarten). But my new team doesn't share like I am used to. I share everything I do with them and while one does share when she remembers, it is like pulling teeth to get the other one to help the team in anyway. It has been very frustrating, but I am hoping that with enough coaching and guidance it will get easier though it is hard for me to see that at this moment. Kind of like the first 6 weeks of school but it might take longer with adults.
Caroline, I hadn’t noticed or thought about it quite like you expressed but I have to agree at the beginning of the semester I was not thrilled with all of our creating opportunities - personally I was concerned I couldn’t create anything that great. Working with a partner or in small groups definately helped to share the responsibility and increase my willingness to take risks - I still believe I’m no good at creating rhymes (so the Burma Shave’s and several of the poems were just torturous to me) but I also found myself opening up to the experience and I definitely agree I learn so much more about we are doing through the activities.
ReplyDeleteAs far as whether we are a collaborative bunch I have to say I’ve had my share of interesting experiences in that realm. My first year teaching I was destaffed from the original position and school I was hired for and placed as an extra first grade teacher in a nearby school - I was working with a bunch of teachers who knew each other for years and planning consisted of us sitting in a room and someone saying they were going to do what they did last year and everyone agreeing and me having nothing as I wasn’t even a teacher the previous year. No one wanted to take the time to share with me - I was new and not worth the effort. As I created my own stuff (out of necessity) the other teachers loved it and wanted me to share with them. Of course I did, but I also noted the irony at home and to ALL of my non school friends. When I got my present job I encountered yet another set of odd circumstances where we would collaborate and plan and then some people went back and taught using completely different resources. I’ve also had my plans stolen and presented to administration by others as their original work. So while I started out thinking that of course teachers would be the sharing type (we share our knowledge with our students) I have learned that teachers are just people with their own motivations and no special claim to sharing or collaborating.