Creativity

Creativity is a profoundly important topic, not only in art, but in many other areas of the curriculum. You would think that creativity is to be found in abundance in an Art room and yet all too often nothing could be further from the truth.

It is very common to see ‘recipe’ art being taught. This is where every student in the class comes up with a variation on a single theme that the teacher has prescribed. For example: everyone makes an African mask, or a ceramic vase, or a cubist painting, or a flower picture. The same materials are used by everyone and the same skills incorporated. I see this type of art in every school I visit. It is very sad to see and nowhere is it to be found more than in the secondary school. I’ve done it myself for many years until I realised how much I was cheating the students. Art should be about personal expression. THEIR personal expression not yours!

Their artwork should reflect their ideas, thoughts, opinions, likes and dislikes. Their imagination should be stimulated and above all, their work should look like children’s art work, not a pale copy of an early twentieth Century Cubist painting or a Georgia O’Keeffe flower. Teachers (especially art specialists) have a habit of removing creativity and taking over control of the making process to raise the quality of outcomes. This especially true of teachers who are teaching GCSE courses, where the emphasis is on getting results. Teachers have been forced down this road by the demands of schools senior management and the pressure of A*-C GCSE Grades.Recipe art raises quality of outcomes but kills creativity. It’s no good saying: “Once they have the skills they can be creative” because that doesn’t work. Creativity needs to be fed regularly from an early age or it drowns in a sea of process-led anxiety and despair: “I can’t do it! It’s too hard! Her’s is better than mine!”

And to add to all of this, the students don’t even get to select the art THEY like. Many GCSE courses are made up of: Still Life Projects, Cubist Projects, Georgia O’Keeffe, Pop Art (Roy Lichtenstein) and pattern making. This does not, in my opinion reflect anyone’s art let alone that of a 16 year old!

Creating anything in art takes imagination, but art can really challenge how people think and has the potential to make powerful statements about life and the world we live in. Children’s imagination is simply wonderful and the trick here is to create projects that encourage the use of imagination and how they can develop it. So the first thing we have to do is to get all of you lovely, hard working teachers to BACK OFF! I’m serious.

Teachers kill creativity. They strangle self-expression with good intentions. They over plan lessons and are terrified of losing control and letting go. From the minute they were in teacher training college they created lesson plans on a minute-by-minute basis, devising every stage of learning with military precision, catering for G&T, SEN, progression, objectives, PLT’s, APP you name it they plan it.

However, if you want to teach art then you are going to have to work differently. Because if you don’t then you will kill the very thing you are trying to teach: Creativity. If you want to develop creativity then look closely at the big issues that artists, engineers, mathematicians, scientists over time have struggled with. Don’t just look at what Michelangelo painted for the Sistine Chapel or even how he painted it, but try to get your students to understand what he was trying to depict. Instead of only getting your pupils to copy sections of his work, ask them to try to depict their own interpretation of heaven. These bigger issues or creative struggles are what define greatness. I have attempted to write some of my own big questions based on the great artistic struggles.