by Barbara Frank
How well I remember the art project that taught me not to be creative in school.
My kindergarten teacher handed out mimeographed drawings of a rabbit eating lettuce in a garden to each of us. Then she held up her neatly colored version for us to emulate.
But I decided that pink bunny ears and green lettuce was boring, so I colored the inside of the rabbit’s ears green and the lettuce pink. I liked the result. So imagine the shock to my five-year-old self when my teacher scolded me and held up my project for the class to show them how not to color the picture. That day I learned that school was not the place to try something different.
Public schools often destroy children’s innate curiosity and creativity. But homeschooling our children is no guarantee that we won’t squelch our own children’s creativity.
It all depends on how we homeschool our children. If we give them plenty of free time to be creative, lots of materials to work with, and the freedom to be who they are, we’ll be on the right path.
But many homeschooling parents believe they’ll increase their children’s inborn creativity by sending them to art classes run by park districts, art schools and homeschool co-ops, and this may be a mistake.
Your children will be better off if the teacher/facilitator is an artist who believes in teaching children techniques and then allowing them to create freely. Unfortunately, many art classes are simply follow-the-leader classes, where children make a preplanned project. The goal is to come up with a result that looks as much like the teacher’s sample project as possible.
While this may help the children learn some techniques, it dampens the creative spirit and also fosters a sense of competition among class members, which is not at all good if you want your children to be creative.
Creativity expert Dr. Teresa Amabile once described an experiment on the psychology of creativity, which she performed amongst a group of young girls who lived near her. She invited two groups of the girls to an “art party” at her home on two separate days. The girls in the first group were shown three prizes that would be awarded to them in a raffle, and were then asked to make individual collages for their hostess. The girls in the second group were also shown the three prizes, but were told that they would go to the three girls who made the best collages.
Dr. Amabile then took all of the collages to be judged on their creativity by professional artists. Those judges determined that the collages made by the girls in competition with each other showed far less creativity than those made by the girls who participated in the raffle. The moral of this is that competition can actually reduce creativity.
Even if the children in an art class aren’t all creating the same item, the spirit of competition is very much at home in the classroom. Some children are just naturally competitive, and their desire to be the best (usually expressed verbally) puts pressure on their classmates to compete with them. There’s nothing wrong with competition in sports or other contests, but when you’re trying to increase your child’s creativity, competitive pressure is what you don’t want.
That’s why your children’s sense of creativity is more likely to remain intact if you avoid putting them in art classes. If you’re a creative, artistic person, your children will do far better under your tutelage. Hopefully you take time for your own creative pursuits; your enthusiasm for your work will rub off on your children. You can set aside certain time periods for creative pursuits, where all of your children work on their own projects, which will not be judged. Of course, you’ll be right there to help them master techniques. This kind of environment is much better for encouraging your children’s creativity than a random art class offered by someone who’s teaching the entire class how to make a macaroni Christmas tree.
If you’re not particularly creative or artistic, you may worry that your children would be better off in an art class. If that’s the case, consider asking an artistic friend or relative to work with your children once in a while. An enthusiastic, artistic leader who will teach your children techniques, gently encourage them and never give them all the same prepackaged art projects can be worth their weight in gold…especially if they understand that there’s nothing wrong with green bunny ears and pink lettuce.
Copyright 2012 Barbara Frank/ Cardamom Publishers
Excerpted from Stages of Homeschooling: Enjoying the Journey (Book 2), the second book in a new eBook series from Cardamom Publishers, now available at www.Amazon.com. Barbara Frank homeschooled her four children for 25 years. You’ll find her on the web at www.barbarafrankonline.com and www.thrivinginthe21stcentury.com
How well I remember the art project that taught me not to be creative in school.
My kindergarten teacher handed out mimeographed drawings of a rabbit eating lettuce in a garden to each of us. Then she held up her neatly colored version for us to emulate.
But I decided that pink bunny ears and green lettuce was boring, so I colored the inside of the rabbit’s ears green and the lettuce pink. I liked the result. So imagine the shock to my five-year-old self when my teacher scolded me and held up my project for the class to show them how not to color the picture. That day I learned that school was not the place to try something different.
Public schools often destroy children’s innate curiosity and creativity. But homeschooling our children is no guarantee that we won’t squelch our own children’s creativity.
It all depends on how we homeschool our children. If we give them plenty of free time to be creative, lots of materials to work with, and the freedom to be who they are, we’ll be on the right path.
But many homeschooling parents believe they’ll increase their children’s inborn creativity by sending them to art classes run by park districts, art schools and homeschool co-ops, and this may be a mistake.
Your children will be better off if the teacher/facilitator is an artist who believes in teaching children techniques and then allowing them to create freely. Unfortunately, many art classes are simply follow-the-leader classes, where children make a preplanned project. The goal is to come up with a result that looks as much like the teacher’s sample project as possible.
While this may help the children learn some techniques, it dampens the creative spirit and also fosters a sense of competition among class members, which is not at all good if you want your children to be creative.
Creativity expert Dr. Teresa Amabile once described an experiment on the psychology of creativity, which she performed amongst a group of young girls who lived near her. She invited two groups of the girls to an “art party” at her home on two separate days. The girls in the first group were shown three prizes that would be awarded to them in a raffle, and were then asked to make individual collages for their hostess. The girls in the second group were also shown the three prizes, but were told that they would go to the three girls who made the best collages.
Dr. Amabile then took all of the collages to be judged on their creativity by professional artists. Those judges determined that the collages made by the girls in competition with each other showed far less creativity than those made by the girls who participated in the raffle. The moral of this is that competition can actually reduce creativity.
Even if the children in an art class aren’t all creating the same item, the spirit of competition is very much at home in the classroom. Some children are just naturally competitive, and their desire to be the best (usually expressed verbally) puts pressure on their classmates to compete with them. There’s nothing wrong with competition in sports or other contests, but when you’re trying to increase your child’s creativity, competitive pressure is what you don’t want.
That’s why your children’s sense of creativity is more likely to remain intact if you avoid putting them in art classes. If you’re a creative, artistic person, your children will do far better under your tutelage. Hopefully you take time for your own creative pursuits; your enthusiasm for your work will rub off on your children. You can set aside certain time periods for creative pursuits, where all of your children work on their own projects, which will not be judged. Of course, you’ll be right there to help them master techniques. This kind of environment is much better for encouraging your children’s creativity than a random art class offered by someone who’s teaching the entire class how to make a macaroni Christmas tree.
If you’re not particularly creative or artistic, you may worry that your children would be better off in an art class. If that’s the case, consider asking an artistic friend or relative to work with your children once in a while. An enthusiastic, artistic leader who will teach your children techniques, gently encourage them and never give them all the same prepackaged art projects can be worth their weight in gold…especially if they understand that there’s nothing wrong with green bunny ears and pink lettuce.
Copyright 2012 Barbara Frank/ Cardamom Publishers
Excerpted from Stages of Homeschooling: Enjoying the Journey (Book 2), the second book in a new eBook series from Cardamom Publishers, now available at www.Amazon.com. Barbara Frank homeschooled her four children for 25 years. You’ll find her on the web at www.barbarafrankonline.com and www.thrivinginthe21stcentury.com
