An Arts Education Hippocratic Oath - Do No Harm!

This is the final post in a series about lessons to be learned from innovation expert Teresa Amabile.

In Growing Up Creative, bestselling Harvard professor Teresa Amabile has a chapter called "How to Destroy a Child's Creativity."  Arts educators should heed these suggestions in the same way that doctors pledge to do no harm.

Amabile cites the following problems as creativity killers:

1. Teacher attitudes:  controlling teachers or teachers with low expectations 
2. Rote learning
3. Fear of failure
4. Conformity pressure
5. "The system" (1989, pp. 87-89)

"The system" refers to the inverse relationship between years in school and creative self-concept.  Many speakers and writers have discussed schooling's apparent negative effect on creativity.  The most popular of these speakers is currently Sir Ken Robinson - his TED talk on the subject is the most viewed video on the TED website (http://www.ted.com/talks/ken_robinson_says_schools_kill_creativity).

While there is no doubt that the fine arts require that specific knowledge, skills, and dispositions need to be mastered, the timing and nature of critical feedback is important. Arts educators must walk a fine line between guiding students and killing creativity.  To make things more challenging, this line is always moving.  Every student has a different line, and even that line may change from day to day based on the student's emotional state.

Professional Learning Communities can play a critical role in helping teachers find this line. Collaboration helps us in at least two critical areas:  it gives us a bigger back of pedagogical tricks, and it helps us know our students better.

Arts educators, let's work together to follow an Artistic Hippocratic Oath.  Let's learn from each other so that we never destroy creativity!

References

Amabile, T. (1989). Growing up creative: Nurturing a lifetime of creativity. New York: Crown Publishers