by Steven David Horwich
The following is an excerpt from Mr. Horwich’s new book, Not Alternative Education – Universal Private Education. This is part six of his article, Homeschooling in the 21st Century. It deals with encouraging creativity in the student.
Is there such a thing as “constructive critique”? Of course there is, but not for an eight year-old. Sorry, no such thing exists for young students.
Anyway, constructive criticism is laced with admiration. I’ve been teaching actors, writers, singers, musicians and directors for nearly 40 years. The people I teach are generally adult and professionals. Nonetheless, I start each set of notes on their work with admiration and a litany of what they did right. The admiration is genuine. There is no artistic or creative effort that does not contain admirable qualities. Even “poor” and “repulsive” creative works have something in them that can be appreciated.
It is a teacher’s first job to locate the admirable aspects of a student’s creative work and to admire them openly and generously. This goes double when teaching children! This would be a huge part of the approach to education which I hope revised modern education would focus on.
Want to build up the artist in your student? Admire his art rather than critique it. Don’t suggest that the spelling can be improved, or the syntax, in a written work. Just admire the fact that a written work now exists where none did a few moments ago, and that it was born out of your student’s intelligence, interest and passion. If you do this every time that you’re confronted with a creative effort, be it a dance, a song, a drawing, a poem…I promise you will be helping to make creative expression on the part of your student a desirable event.
By the way, the same goes for every subject. Want a scientist in the family? Admire your student’s scientific meanderings and experiments. Want a mathematician? Marvel at Junior’s long division loudly and often. Want a football player? Put the pads on your son, step back and beam in his direction. You get the idea.
Teachers in school situations are not free to avoid critique of their students. They are obligated to “test”, “grade” and to generally accept and use the critical approach to education, even where creativity is involved. Testing and grading have absolutely no place in the creative development of a child. As a homeschooler, you may eschew them completely.
Skip the critique and replace it with genuine admiration for those qualities in the student’s work that you find admirable. How will this improve your student’s work? First, this approach will make it safe for the student to create. Hence, they will enjoy it more and do more creating.
As they create more, they will be exposed to their own work and to the works of others. I have never seen a student who enjoyed creating something who did not improve when left alone to do so.
A student excited about creating will do so with a will, attack a creative project and invest their free time and energy. Such enthusiasm leads to a lot of work done. And the more work done, the more the student will correct himself as he raises the bar on what he’s trying to do. The more the student is exposed to great work in his chosen art form, the more he will himself understand how high that bar should be set.
Your critique will not provide him perspective. Critique will only hamper the student with a sense of inadequacy, and the limits of your own vision and artistic biases.
Steven Horwich is an Emmy and Dramalogue award-winning writer/director, who has split his life between the arts and education. A teacher with over 35 years and over 20,000 hours of experience from elementary school through university-level teaching, he started homeschooling his own children in 2002. This led him to author over 300 courses since 2002, a complete curricula (excluding math) for ages 5-adult, called Connect The Thoughts. Over 20,000 people have used CTT since making it available via the Internet in 2007. His curricula is presented at www.connectthethoughts.com. There is over 5 hours of film explaining his courses and approach. He has authored a book about education today, Poor Cheated Little Johnny, and a teacher training program to go with it. He currently presents a free webinar about education and homeschooling every third Tuesday.
The following is an excerpt from Mr. Horwich’s new book, Not Alternative Education – Universal Private Education. This is part six of his article, Homeschooling in the 21st Century. It deals with encouraging creativity in the student.
Is there such a thing as “constructive critique”? Of course there is, but not for an eight year-old. Sorry, no such thing exists for young students.
Anyway, constructive criticism is laced with admiration. I’ve been teaching actors, writers, singers, musicians and directors for nearly 40 years. The people I teach are generally adult and professionals. Nonetheless, I start each set of notes on their work with admiration and a litany of what they did right. The admiration is genuine. There is no artistic or creative effort that does not contain admirable qualities. Even “poor” and “repulsive” creative works have something in them that can be appreciated.
It is a teacher’s first job to locate the admirable aspects of a student’s creative work and to admire them openly and generously. This goes double when teaching children! This would be a huge part of the approach to education which I hope revised modern education would focus on.
Want to build up the artist in your student? Admire his art rather than critique it. Don’t suggest that the spelling can be improved, or the syntax, in a written work. Just admire the fact that a written work now exists where none did a few moments ago, and that it was born out of your student’s intelligence, interest and passion. If you do this every time that you’re confronted with a creative effort, be it a dance, a song, a drawing, a poem…I promise you will be helping to make creative expression on the part of your student a desirable event.
By the way, the same goes for every subject. Want a scientist in the family? Admire your student’s scientific meanderings and experiments. Want a mathematician? Marvel at Junior’s long division loudly and often. Want a football player? Put the pads on your son, step back and beam in his direction. You get the idea.
Teachers in school situations are not free to avoid critique of their students. They are obligated to “test”, “grade” and to generally accept and use the critical approach to education, even where creativity is involved. Testing and grading have absolutely no place in the creative development of a child. As a homeschooler, you may eschew them completely.
Skip the critique and replace it with genuine admiration for those qualities in the student’s work that you find admirable. How will this improve your student’s work? First, this approach will make it safe for the student to create. Hence, they will enjoy it more and do more creating.
As they create more, they will be exposed to their own work and to the works of others. I have never seen a student who enjoyed creating something who did not improve when left alone to do so.
A student excited about creating will do so with a will, attack a creative project and invest their free time and energy. Such enthusiasm leads to a lot of work done. And the more work done, the more the student will correct himself as he raises the bar on what he’s trying to do. The more the student is exposed to great work in his chosen art form, the more he will himself understand how high that bar should be set.
Your critique will not provide him perspective. Critique will only hamper the student with a sense of inadequacy, and the limits of your own vision and artistic biases.
Steven Horwich is an Emmy and Dramalogue award-winning writer/director, who has split his life between the arts and education. A teacher with over 35 years and over 20,000 hours of experience from elementary school through university-level teaching, he started homeschooling his own children in 2002. This led him to author over 300 courses since 2002, a complete curricula (excluding math) for ages 5-adult, called Connect The Thoughts. Over 20,000 people have used CTT since making it available via the Internet in 2007. His curricula is presented at www.connectthethoughts.com. There is over 5 hours of film explaining his courses and approach. He has authored a book about education today, Poor Cheated Little Johnny, and a teacher training program to go with it. He currently presents a free webinar about education and homeschooling every third Tuesday.
