Creating Everyday Art or Creating Art Every Day!
A lot of parents believe that their children are either born with artistic talent or they're not. But research suggests that artistic creativity, along with other kinds of creativity, is more of a skill than an inborn talent, and it's a skill parents can help their kids develop.
Many researchers believe we have fundamentally changed the experience of childhood in a way that impairs creative development. Toy and entertainment companies provide an endless stream of prefab characters, images, props, and plotlines that allow kids to put their imaginations to rest. Children no longer need to pretend a stick is a sword in a game or story they've imagined; they can play Star Wars with a readymade light-saber, in costumes designed for the specific role they're playing.
But researchers have also identified steps we can take to help kids tap into their own creative potential. Drawing on that research, here are some ideas for fostering creativity in kids.
1. Provide the resources for creative expression. The key resource here is time. Kids need a lot of time for unstructured, child-directed, imaginative play—unencumbered by adult direction, and independent of a lot of commercial stuff. Research by Kathy Hirsch-Pasek of Temple University, among others, has found that children attending academic preschools show no advantage in reading or math achievement over kids who go to play-based preschools. Look for resources that help children create but that don't tell them what to create. I've been amazed by some of the things my kids do with art supplies, cheap cameras, old costumes, and building materials.
2. Make your home a Petri dish for creativity. At dinnertime, for example, brainstorm activities for the upcoming weekend, encouraging the kids to come up with things they've never done before. Resist pointing out which ideas aren't possible, or deciding which ideas are best. The focus of creative activities should be on the process—generating (vs. evaluating) new ideas. Another way to nurture a creative atmosphere at home is to encourage kids to take risks, make mistakes, and fail. Yes, fail: In her book Mindset, Stanford researcher Carol Dweck shows that kids who are afraid of failure and judgment will curb their own creative thought. Share the mistakes you've made recently, so they get the idea that it's okay to flub up.
3. Allow children the freedom and autonomy to explore their ideas. External constraints—making kids color within the lines, so to speak—can reduce creativity in thinking. In one study, when researchers first showed kids how to make a plane or truck with Legos, kids showed less creativity in their own building than when they were just let loose to make whatever they wanted with the same Lego set.
4. Encourage children to read for pleasure and participate in the arts, rather than watch TV. Studies by children's health researcher Dimitri Christakis have found that TV viewing before the age of three can harm kids' language development and attention spans later in life. Studies by Dutch researcher T.H. van der Voort suggest that watching TV might reduce kids' creative imagination, and violent TV shows are associated with a decrease in kids' fantasy play and an increase in aggressiveness. Less screen time means more time for creative activities, like rehearsing a play, learning to draw, or reading every book by a favorite author.
5. Resist the temptation to reward children for their creativity. A study led by child development researcher Melissa Groves has found that incentives interfere with the creative process, reducing the flexibility of children's thinking. Instead of trying to motivate children with rewards and incentives, we parents sometimes need to back off so that kids can work on the creative activities that they're intrinsically motivated to do. Instead of rewarding a child for practicing the piano, for example, we can encourage her to do something she enjoys more—maybe draw at the kitchen table or dance around the living room.
6. Try not to focus on what your children achieve. I think this is one of the greatest challenges we parents face in today's ultra-competitive world. But Dweck's research is very clear that children gain confidence from an emphasis on process rather than product. This can be hard advice to follow when our children come home from school with just the end product of an art project. But whether they're working at home or at school, we can emphasize the creative process by asking questions: Are you finished? What did you like about that activity? Did you have fun?
Perhaps most importantly, research shows that fostering creativity in our children will help them with more than art: Creativity is essential to science, math, and even emotional intelligence. Creative people are more flexible and more successful problem solvers, making them better poised to take advantage of new opportunities. So when we nurture the artistic lives of our children, we give them the tools they need to thrive in our rapidly changing world.
SOURCE: Greater Good Magazine
http://greatergood.berkeley.edu/greatergood/2009winter/Carter853.php
WINTER 2009 Volume V, Issue 3
Everyday Art : six steps for boosting kids’ creativity by Christine Carter
Many researchers believe we have fundamentally changed the experience of childhood in a way that impairs creative development. Toy and entertainment companies provide an endless stream of prefab characters, images, props, and plotlines that allow kids to put their imaginations to rest. Children no longer need to pretend a stick is a sword in a game or story they've imagined; they can play Star Wars with a readymade light-saber, in costumes designed for the specific role they're playing.
But researchers have also identified steps we can take to help kids tap into their own creative potential. Drawing on that research, here are some ideas for fostering creativity in kids.
1. Provide the resources for creative expression. The key resource here is time. Kids need a lot of time for unstructured, child-directed, imaginative play—unencumbered by adult direction, and independent of a lot of commercial stuff. Research by Kathy Hirsch-Pasek of Temple University, among others, has found that children attending academic preschools show no advantage in reading or math achievement over kids who go to play-based preschools. Look for resources that help children create but that don't tell them what to create. I've been amazed by some of the things my kids do with art supplies, cheap cameras, old costumes, and building materials.
2. Make your home a Petri dish for creativity. At dinnertime, for example, brainstorm activities for the upcoming weekend, encouraging the kids to come up with things they've never done before. Resist pointing out which ideas aren't possible, or deciding which ideas are best. The focus of creative activities should be on the process—generating (vs. evaluating) new ideas. Another way to nurture a creative atmosphere at home is to encourage kids to take risks, make mistakes, and fail. Yes, fail: In her book Mindset, Stanford researcher Carol Dweck shows that kids who are afraid of failure and judgment will curb their own creative thought. Share the mistakes you've made recently, so they get the idea that it's okay to flub up.
3. Allow children the freedom and autonomy to explore their ideas. External constraints—making kids color within the lines, so to speak—can reduce creativity in thinking. In one study, when researchers first showed kids how to make a plane or truck with Legos, kids showed less creativity in their own building than when they were just let loose to make whatever they wanted with the same Lego set.
4. Encourage children to read for pleasure and participate in the arts, rather than watch TV. Studies by children's health researcher Dimitri Christakis have found that TV viewing before the age of three can harm kids' language development and attention spans later in life. Studies by Dutch researcher T.H. van der Voort suggest that watching TV might reduce kids' creative imagination, and violent TV shows are associated with a decrease in kids' fantasy play and an increase in aggressiveness. Less screen time means more time for creative activities, like rehearsing a play, learning to draw, or reading every book by a favorite author.
5. Resist the temptation to reward children for their creativity. A study led by child development researcher Melissa Groves has found that incentives interfere with the creative process, reducing the flexibility of children's thinking. Instead of trying to motivate children with rewards and incentives, we parents sometimes need to back off so that kids can work on the creative activities that they're intrinsically motivated to do. Instead of rewarding a child for practicing the piano, for example, we can encourage her to do something she enjoys more—maybe draw at the kitchen table or dance around the living room.
6. Try not to focus on what your children achieve. I think this is one of the greatest challenges we parents face in today's ultra-competitive world. But Dweck's research is very clear that children gain confidence from an emphasis on process rather than product. This can be hard advice to follow when our children come home from school with just the end product of an art project. But whether they're working at home or at school, we can emphasize the creative process by asking questions: Are you finished? What did you like about that activity? Did you have fun?
Perhaps most importantly, research shows that fostering creativity in our children will help them with more than art: Creativity is essential to science, math, and even emotional intelligence. Creative people are more flexible and more successful problem solvers, making them better poised to take advantage of new opportunities. So when we nurture the artistic lives of our children, we give them the tools they need to thrive in our rapidly changing world.
SOURCE: Greater Good Magazine
http://greatergood.berkeley.edu/greatergood/2009winter/Carter853.php
WINTER 2009 Volume V, Issue 3
Everyday Art : six steps for boosting kids’ creativity by Christine Carter
The Truth About Art Education
by Eldon Katter from the January 2013 issue of SchoolArts Magazine
The unquestionable truth about art education is simple: As a result of a sound art education, young people end up knowing more about human artistic potential and accomplishments. Additionally, art education provides experiences that are unique in education. Not only do students learn about art, they also learn about perception and our visual world, about our cultural heritages, and about mastery of skills.
Learning About Art
Quality art education offers the opportunity for all learners to experience the personal pleasures and special understandings that can be gained through repeated encounters with masterfully articulated forms of visual communication, decoration, and celebration.
Learning About Perception
Perception is perhaps the most important part of visual arts education. It's concerned with changing and shifting viewpoints. Through art experiences, we learn how to see the same thing in different ways and from different perspectives. With practice, we can learn to broaden our perception, look more widely, take other things into account, and be more open to possibilities and choices.
Learning About Our Visual World
We live in a society that is dominated by manipulated images, designed objects, and planned structures that affect the natural order of the environment. To live successfully and participate fully in this visually oriented world, we all need to understand and evaluate the purposes of the visual forms we encounter on a daily basis.
Learning About Global Heritages
Global implications in education are increasingly evident. Access to the Internet makes the need for global awareness greater than ever before. Through encounters with art, students begin to see their needs, values, and beliefs in relation to those of the diverse peoples throughout the world and in their local communities. As students move from the personal, through their community to the global, they form an expanded knowledge of their world.
Learning About Skill and Mastery
Many skills used by artists are based upon traditional ways of doing things. These processes have been handed down from artisan to apprentice through hundreds of generations, and traditions are continued because they have been found to work. As they acquire the ability to work with patience, precision, and care, students learn an even more important life lesson: "If it's worth doing at all, it's worth doing well."
by Eldon Katter from the January 2013 issue of SchoolArts Magazine
The unquestionable truth about art education is simple: As a result of a sound art education, young people end up knowing more about human artistic potential and accomplishments. Additionally, art education provides experiences that are unique in education. Not only do students learn about art, they also learn about perception and our visual world, about our cultural heritages, and about mastery of skills.
Learning About Art
Quality art education offers the opportunity for all learners to experience the personal pleasures and special understandings that can be gained through repeated encounters with masterfully articulated forms of visual communication, decoration, and celebration.
Learning About Perception
Perception is perhaps the most important part of visual arts education. It's concerned with changing and shifting viewpoints. Through art experiences, we learn how to see the same thing in different ways and from different perspectives. With practice, we can learn to broaden our perception, look more widely, take other things into account, and be more open to possibilities and choices.
Learning About Our Visual World
We live in a society that is dominated by manipulated images, designed objects, and planned structures that affect the natural order of the environment. To live successfully and participate fully in this visually oriented world, we all need to understand and evaluate the purposes of the visual forms we encounter on a daily basis.
Learning About Global Heritages
Global implications in education are increasingly evident. Access to the Internet makes the need for global awareness greater than ever before. Through encounters with art, students begin to see their needs, values, and beliefs in relation to those of the diverse peoples throughout the world and in their local communities. As students move from the personal, through their community to the global, they form an expanded knowledge of their world.
Learning About Skill and Mastery
Many skills used by artists are based upon traditional ways of doing things. These processes have been handed down from artisan to apprentice through hundreds of generations, and traditions are continued because they have been found to work. As they acquire the ability to work with patience, precision, and care, students learn an even more important life lesson: "If it's worth doing at all, it's worth doing well."