Out of the 3 lecture videos this week, the one I was most interested in was Sir Ken Robinson’s TED talk. Particularly with the idea that schools kill creativity. We touched on this idea in a previous lecture, something about possums and kangaroos, and the way children see them in comparison to the way adults see them. Anyway, I just realised how true it is. Because I remember when were were choosing electives we wanted to do in year 10, and I wanted to do art, design, that whole deal, but I wasn’t able to because my coordinators thought it would be more useful if I continued Japanese instead of art, a subject I despised. Nothing against languages, languages are fun, its just the class that I didn’t like, for reasons outlined in this TED talks. I wasn’t good at Japanese, and it meant that in every class I would get things wrong, so I didn’t want to continue the subject. I know with languages there is a clear right and wrong, its not creative, but I know what it feels like to be that kid who keeps getting things wrong, and if that subject was art or design or something, I would have definitely stopped trying to be creative and I would’ve stuck to what was safe and what other people are doing. Because in school, being wrong is embarrassing, you know?

Actually at the moment I have been on and off teaching myself Korean language, and I have learned and remembered more from that then I did with 3.5 years of learning Japanese. Because in the comfort of my own home, yeah I get things wrong, but there isn’t the stigma attached to it, the teacher doesn’t give you that look of ‘wow, did you really just say that?’ and this means that I am happier continuing my education in this field, because I’m not afraid to be wrong.

And with specific reference to creative tasks, I have mentioned year 12 art a few times on this blog, possibly because it was a favourite subject of mine. But my former classmates and I all agree, that most people in the art world don’t like showing people ‘works in progress,’ particularly with technical drawing, photo-realism etc. Sure in the end its going to look great, but before you are finished, some things are in the wrong position and you have to re-do them, and some things don’t look right, and artists can see that and correct them, hence the title ‘work in progress.’ But there were so many occasions when we would be working away in the art rooms, only having just started a drawing or something, and ‘school tours’ would come around and look at what we are doing. The tour lady would make some rude remarks about whose art looks better up on the walls, and would shoot us judgmental glares if we were working on something sub-par, a kind of, “cant you make it look like the school makes good artists?” kind of look. If I was younger and more sensitive, I might have decided that I should just not do art, because I’m wrong, its not good enough, but luckily by age 17/18 I was able to decide the lady was just being a jerk instead.

In short, I would hate for anyone to think their creativity is inadequate, because, well, the TED talk explains why.