Masters in International Education
Art Teacher for 27 years
Current position: Lower School Art teacher at the American school of Madrid
How has education changed in your 27 years of teaching?
Education has become more about documenting student results. I’m talking generally. I’m not talking about teaching arts specifically but I see that in schools the emphasis is much more about keeping records. All that happens needs to be documented and children’s scores are constantly being documented and tracked and compared. I feel the biggest change is that it has become very much about documentation. In art class, it means that we are being asked to grade as if it were a subject like math or Reading so we’re being asked to break it down into standards and score it. Essentially score creativity, score a creative endeavor . This is not as alarming as it sounds. For example if you’re assigning a portrait you know to say, well has the child included the features has the child made an attempt to include detail
What change have you seen in children when they’re evaluated like that versus not being evaluated at all.
Children have always been evaluated in art but now the evaluation is broken down into categories and steps and I I don’t know if it’s a result of this, but over years I have seen that kids are less imaginative, they are less free with their expression and it takes them a while to get past all the first things that occur to them. We have always encouraged them to go past first ideas and to get to something that’s a bit deeper and more meaningful to them. It may be because of this type of evaluation, but screens have had a big impact on kids’ creativity and learning. They have a lower tolerance for frustration in trying to do something with their hands.
Interestingly I do projects with kids that are computer-based with Procreate or Paint and curiously, kids are not used to saving stuff because they use Google. They’re just not used to certain things that we kind of take for granted.
I do think screens have quite a lot to do with it with their sort of lower tolerance using their hands and getting frustrated and persevering when something doesn’t come out right the first time. In Lower School kids are not tuned into their grades, especially the art grades. I don’t see kids being that hampered by awareness of grades, that starts in middle and gets accentuated in high school.
Would you say that children’s creativity or imagination decreases over time?
Yeah, that’s developmental. That’s just the way children develop when they’re much younger. When they’re three and four a line can represent a subway station with you know thousands of people standing on the platform. They’re so conceptual about that age and then as they get older they become more aware of their environment, they’re much more self-critical.
This is just developmental, it has nothing to do with art, it’s just the way kids are. They become more self-conscious.
First, it’s just all about me and the world and then they become aware that they’re not the only ones in the world, there’s all these other people that are competing for the same kind of attention. And then children who feel their fine motor skills are less developed they’re going to be even more self critical of their skills. I feel like it’s happening sooner, I feel like by second grade kids are already saying: oh I can’t, I can’t draw, I’m not good at drawing whereas maybe years ago it was third grade before they started this type of thinking.
How would you say in your experience that creativity, imagination etc is perceived by parents?
I think it depends, I definitely experience parents who seem very aware of a child’s potential and are eager to have it developed and fostered and encouraged. I’ve also seen parents who are critical of their kids’ work. For example, fine motor skills develop up through middle school. You know that’s not a given that by a certain age kids can even do good handwriting. I’ve seen parents who’ve been critical of their kids work, I try to counter because I don’t see it that way. I don’t equate fine motor skills and the ability to draw something realistically with creativity or at all in fact sometimes they’re diametrically opposed.
Do you feel you teach creativity?
I aspire to create an environment where kids are encouraged to be creative and where they feel safe to take risks.
How would you define creativity?
I guess listening to yourself and trying to draw out what’s inside you and let it take form.
Are teachers at ASM in subjects like math or science incorporating creativity into their classes?
I think so because I think they teach different ways to do things. I do think that it is definitely valued. You know that there’s more than one way to solve a math problem. I mean you can use manipulatives or you can use pie graphs, there’s many many ways of doing it and I feel like they do a pretty good job of that, so I would say yes I think it is valued and included in lower school.
Do you feel in Lower school teachers are teaching problem solving?
I definitely think it’s needed. In Lower School there’s so much data collection and teachers feel quite pressured to produce that data that the time that it takes to implement problem solving or creativity…… because it takes time to be to be creative and it also takes getting bored and that’s something – I know I’m not directly answering your question- but I think that there’s a general fear of downtime. Kids are scheduled down to the last minute and that does not allow for just wandering of the mind and I don’t think there can be much creativity if that’s the case. For example, at ASM they’ve just adopted this new play, it’s called outdoor playing learning and they built this fabulous playground and kids are really encouraged to play with pretty much whatever they want and disconnect. But then they only give kids 30 minutes to play. I’m not sure how much creativity can really take place in half an hour.
So I do think I think it’s valued, I think that there’s still this juncture between the philosophy and the practice.
Creativity 30 years ago was understood as you pick up a canvas and some paints. There are many different ways of being creative, you can be a creative mechanic or whatever, but I do think that maybe practice hasn’t caught up.
How do you feel about the Arts stopping after fifth grade?
Music is mandatory at ASM, but art is not. I guess to oblige a student to do something they don’t want to do is something I don’t agree with.
What if it was a class where the key aspects were problem solving, figuring out what roads I can take, and also learning to not be afraid to make mistakes?
In Lower School the way they teach is based a lot on imagination, play and creativity but as the kids grow it kind of stops, it’s more rigorous. It’s a bit because they have to comply with so many things, so it is hard to get this in.
Do you see creativity in teacher development courses?
They send teachers and encourage them to include problem solving, imagination, and innovation in their teaching. There are things about TD is that is incredibly inspiring, you get these droplets of ideas and but then what’s lacking is the time to actually implement it and we do have these workshops where often some kind of game or some kind of thinking on your feet activity is Incorporated but it’s more of an Icebreaker, let’s get things started before we have to sit down and do the real work.
I think there’s a definite stigma around that sort of freer, more open-ended, let’s see what happens, kind of activity because it’s a counterpoint to the real work: like the hard work which academics would say would be useful for you. A
After those workshops what would you say would be useful for you to help you be able to implement those ideas, besides time?
Primarily it’s TIME. Teachers don’t have time to implement these innovations, classes are too short, and the grading system is time consuming. Also a more adaptable space, where several things could be going on at once.
Time and designed spaces seem to be a frequent answer to the topic of implementing innovation. If this is happening in schools, imagine in the workplace where all that matters is productivity. This will continue until we realise that taking this time will not only result in more and improved results but in happier people.