What is creativity? Our collaborative document.

The activity that Sophie, Lucy and I thought of was a sort of treasure hunt. The gallery would have a sheet of questions, maybe different questions for different ‘levels’ of visitors.

The questions would take you around to see certain pictures (perhaps the questions could correlate to specific topics that certain works of art relate to). By using questions which point out certain aspects of different pictures, it would ensure that particular attention is paid to relevant pieces of art work. Such questions could be;

1) Find the picture in the art gallery where the young girl used to be holding a bunch of flowers. What is the girl holding now?

Such a question would mean that the learner would have to look through a variety of art works and read the descriptions and  (hopefully!) learn something!

Other questions could be more open like asking the learner to go into a room and pick their favourite picture and write down why they like it so much and what sort of feelings they have while looking and the picture and what they are discovering the more they look at the picture. Then afterwards a follow up activity could be to write a story/poem about these feelings….

My favourite idea that came out of your museum visit, was that of Ellie and Liz. Their idea was something along the lines of taking and object, a person and a landscape from three different art pieces and work them into a story together. I thought this idea was good because I thought that it would really inspire creativity in students and make the gallery visit a valuable learning experience.

On another note, VJ (my car) broke down the other night. How very sad. I have to say that the AA man did (sort of!) appreciate my creative car stickers!

So a few of us hit the town on Thursday night in an 80′s/FAME themed education social. I was so impressed with the effort and creativeness that went into peoples costumes! Thought I’d post a few pictures to show peoples efforts!

So, at the beginning of last weeks session, Sophie asked us to think of a moment from our school life when we felt our creativity had been inspired or hindered. I though that is was quite sad that I wasn’t able to think of either so, since then I have been wracking my brains to think of something. The only thing that I have come up with is amoment related to a netball tournament although I am not sure how this would relate to creativity. Perhaps it does link to creativity if you look at Phil’s blog where he discusses whether there is a connection between sports and creativity.

Anyway, when I was in year six there was an annual netball tournament but it had been postponed from one week to another, unfortunately I wasn’t able to make to second date as my parents had busy jobs and wouldn’t be able to pick me up. So the team went to the tournament….and lost, which was quite a disappointment as the previous year, we had won! The day after the tournament, the netball coach called me into her classroom and really laid into me about not being able to make it to the tournament and that it was my fault that the team lost. This made me feel so bad and guilty that after this I never really felt confident at netball and for the rest of the year didnt play netball. I find it quite sad that this is the only significant memory that I have about my creativity in primary school and its a bad one. Quite a depressing thought!

On another notre, nearer the end of the session Sophie asked us to discuss what influences our creativity. The two most significant points that I think Joanna and I came up with, which I feel are important to me were the environment and the encouragement from others.

Firstly, the type of the environment that I am in is important. It has to be an environment that I am comfortable in other wise my mind will not focus and I will constantly be thinking about what is going on around me rather than thinking about the task in hand.

I think that positive encouragement is very important when someone is trying to be creative, so that they can keep a positive mind set, however, personally I prefer to keep that task that I am working on to myself until is is done completely and I am happy wiht it before someone see’s it and passes judgement positive or negative.

Sophie also suggested that we make an active effort to take these factors into account in order for us to be more creative. To do this, the environment that I am in, I always try and make it happy and peaceful which is what I feel makes me more likely to be creative for example, my room is my sanctuary and I try to keep it peaceful, not too cluttered with images on the walls which make me smile or mean something significant to me. In relation to the second point, I try to always keep a postive attitude (even when the computer decided to get rid of my first post!) so I will try to make more of a conscious effort to be more positive as sometimes, when what I am working on is’nt quite up to the standard that I wished I can tend to be come quite down trodden but hopefully consciously keeping a more positive attitude will help me to combat this and become more open to my creativness! I shall have to keep you all updated!

So, that was take two of one post, however, I dont think that it quite matches the first one. oh well!

Hiya again!

Just thought I’d write a little post to show you just how creative I can be when it comes to my car (she is called vj!) Hope you like her! ha!

It raises quite an interesting point about how being foreced to be creative and forced to think outside the box actually inhibits our creativity as it forces us out of our comfort zone which is that box.

The article talks about the box being something which we are most comfortable in, we are born into “your box” and it is a place where “you are who you are. It’s a pretty good box. Most important, it is yours the box in which you have operated forever.” It then goes on to say that we should let this box grow in order for us to flourish instead of having to leave our box and comfort zone in order to be creative.

Personally I feel that when I am being forced to be creative and think outside of the box it is really difficult and leaving my box feels awkward. I much prefer to be in my box and often I find my creative steak coming out when I am comfortable in my surroundings, but maybe thats just me!

I know what you’re thinking now, that you really want to listen to that song, well here, this is the link; “Never going to give you up” . Go on, have a little sing-a-long and let your creative juices flow.

The Site says that “Creative people use the RIGHT side of their brains more than the LEFT.” So according to this test I am creative as my Right Brain got 54% and my left 46%!

It also says that “The right side of your brain controls the left side of your body” so I guess that means that left handed people are more creative than right handed people? Is this really true?

Maybe if we all took the test to see if we are creative by its standards then comparered results for left and right handed people?

Ok, so it seems that my clarinet teacher was right (although I chose to ignore him at the time!) that practise makes perfect or at least…better!

By using my goolge reader more and more I think I am becoming better at it. I have subscribed to all your blogs and commented on a few! Just look at me go!!! ha!

I have come across a website; What makes us creative? . An interesting quote from this page for me was; “[Creativity] is not something that some people have and others lack.” It seems that everyone is creative, I think that we all have to find our own ways to tap into that creativity.

Previously, when I have been creative I have thought that it was just on a whim, however, I wonder if there is a specific factor which triggers my creative. I shall be on the look out for such “triggers” from here on in……