Presentation

Finding Your Tribe

Ken Robinson says that for most people who have found their 'Element' i.e. work which combines passion and talent, that connecting with other people who share their talents, feeds their creativity. Robinson refers to others in your field as your "tribe". Robinson introduces us to Helen Pilcher a scientist turned author/comedian. Helen says "Leaving the lab was scary but not as scary as the prospect of staying. My advice, should you be contmplating making that leap, is to make like a lemming and jump." (Robinson, K. 2009 p. 110). Therefore when you haven't found your tribe and you are not inspired by others in your field it's time to get out!

A Music Teacher! Is that a proper job?

On the ‘The Apprentice’ on TV3 on the 9th of November a music teacher, Sam Conroy was belittled for teaching “only music!” It was suggested to her that music wasn’t a real subject and “how could anybody teach, only music?” During a staff discussion on the topic the following day a colleague of mine said “That’s typical of what people think. You only have to look at parent-teacher meetings to know people don’t care about music, they never even make the effort to show up!” As a language teacher I was astonished at this. I always have a great turnout to parent-teacher meetings. This highlights the fact that parents place much more importance on languages than they do on the arts, a view that has to be altered, if students are to be true to their natural abilities and talents. Our jobs are the implementation of who we are and “Education is the system that’s supposed to develop our natural abilities and enable us to make our way in the world” (Robinson, K. 2009 p16). However, instead, we are educating people out of creativity, stifling their individual talents and “killing their motivation to learn” (Robinson, K. 2009 p 16).

Does Artistry lead to Anguish?

"Eat, Pray, Love" Author Elizabeth Gilbert muses on the impossible things we expect from artists and geniuses. In the TEDtalks video below she explores negative attitudes towards creativity. She asks "Is it logical that anybody should be expected to be afraid of the work that they were put on this earth to do?" Gilbert suggests that we have "interanlised and accepted collectively the notion that creativity and suffering are inherently linked and that artistry will ultimately lead to anguish." The perpetuation of this negative assumption could be the reason why we persuade our kids to become involved in anything other than creativity. Gilbrt takes a look at ancient Rome and Greece in an effort to overcome this negativity. ELIZABETH GILBERT ON CREATIVITY

One Size Doesn't Fit All!

When people use a thinking style that's completely natural to them everything comes more easily. Visual people do not learn from dictation. Tony Buzan invented mind mapping as an educational aid for visual people. It allows you to create a visual representation of a concept or a piece of information. In order to be effective the education system needs to heighten awareness of different learning and thinking styles.

Searching for Meaning through Creativity

The power of human creativity is obvious everywhere, in the technologies we use, in the buildings we inhabit, in the clothes we wear and in the films we watch. But the reach of creativity is very much deeper. It affects not only what we put in the world, but also what we make of it – not only what we do, but also how we think and feel about the world. We spend much of our time trying to figure out what it all means. We don’t just see the world as it is. We view it from our own internal reference; that is we interpret the world through the particular ideas and beliefs that have shaped our own cultures and our personal outlook. All of this stands between us and the world acting as a filter on what we perceive and what we think. “What we think of ourselves and the world makes us who we are and what we can be” (Robinson, K.2009 p81).

However, if we can create our own world view then we can recreate it too by taking a different perspective and reframing our situation and this is where creativity has a huge part to play. In the preface to Man’s Search for Meaning, Gordon Allport manages to convey the capacity of the human spirit to triumph over it’s surroundings. “to live is to suffer, to survive is to find meaning in the suffering.” (Frankl, V. 1959, p. 9). The prisoners in Auschwitz and other concentration camps; by choosing to see their situation as an undertaking; that if overcome, would prove them worthwhile members of society, was ‘reframing’ at its most powerful. Frankl himself later in the novel says “without suffering and death life cannot be complete”. (Frankl, V. 1959, p. 76). It is a splendid account of the human spirit that people could look upon such extreme suffering as an addition to their experience of life and in doing so could transcend their physical environment.

Frankl also asserts the power of the imagination. “Sensitive people who were used to a rich intellectual life may have suffered much pain (they were often of a delicate constitution), but the damage to their inner selves was less. They were able to retreat from their terrible surroundings to a life of inner riches and spiritual freedom”. (Frankl, V. 1959, p. 47). It is therefore of vital importance that we instil in our children the power of creativity and imagination.

I Could Have Danced All Night!

Activities that we love fill us with energy even when we are physically exhausted. Activities we don't like can drain us in minutes. "When you do something you love the rest of the world just slips away" (Robinson, K. 2009 p89). FUN MAKES ALL THE DIFFERENCE