Amid the happy excited voices and hugs for old friends, kids return to some schools this week without any sort of art program. It's tough times for Los Angeles public schools. Although teachers are under even more pressure, it's still possible to create a classroom atmosphere conducive to creative thought and expression.
The atmosphere needed to promote creative growth is not the same as that required to memorizing math facts or spelling words. To learn math or spelling, the child has to concentrate and get past any feelings of dislike. He's dependent on the teacher for direction, and validity as to doing it right. Art is the opposite. It's about emotion, taking initiative. It's not memorization that's needed, but inventiveness, and independent thinking. The teacher can't be looking for the one right answer.
Teachers should be able to switch gears. It's more nebulous to nurture the creative spirit, but it's done through accepting and rewarding it. Children are usually good about pursuing self-directed activity, they just need the opportunity. The key behavior for the adult is being warm and friendly -- gee, those are the qualities we want expressed around kids anyway!
Even a teacher who doesn't feel like he/she has any artistic ability can't use that as an excuse for not providing opportunity for her students to develop their own (but everyone has creativity just like anything else that needs practice). The fear for such a teacher is that she thinks she has to teach her kids how to draw. But kids will figure that out. All the teacher has to do is let them draw part of the curriculum instead of filling out a worksheet. Providing a "right brain" activity during the school day gives the kids some balance -- and even some relief -- from the totally left brain environment of school.
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