Last year in a philosophy course, our professor asked my cohort, "raise your hand if you would consider yourself creative." I found myself in the minority of those who confidently raised their hands. I grew up in a family culture that embraced creativity (paper bag skits, changing song lyrics, arts and crafts, free play, daydreaming, etc.) As a teacher I feel that I am creative in how I approach lesson planning, rehearsal technique, programming for concerts, and finding engaging ways to reach students. I was surprised that many of my cohort friends did not readily admit to being creative. As a teacher leader, how can I help others embrace creativity? Is there a stigma to labeling yourself as "creative" or "a creative"? Is creativity a skill that can be developed? Can people expand their ability to be creative? Bloom's Revised Taxonomy below prioritizes creating. (Image from mramusicplace.net)
The new (2014) national music standards really emphasize creating. As educators we know that a student creating work can showcase all of the other individual skills they have accumulated during rehearsals and years of music classes. In my traditional choral classroom my goal is regularly to get students to the "evaluating" phase. I am proud when they can be critical about evaluating musical work. However, I don't feel that I regularly get my students to be creative in my classroom. In his book, "Music Learning today: Digital Pedagogy for Creating, Performing, and Responding to Music," William I. Bauer says: Constraints (putting limitations or restrictions on creative assignments) often help to facilitate the creative process, providing a framework, or scaffold, for creative efforts. As a student I feel more comfortable with a creative process broken down, and I don't necessarily offer this to my students. Sometimes I have thrown students into creative projects (Compose an ostinato! Write a choral arrangement with this given poem! Write a bass part!) without any guidance, direction, or scaffolding. I don't want to merely "check off" a standard with a surface-level lesson on composition. I want to have my students leave high school as fully independent, creative, and expressive people. One thing I tried this year with great success was a composition project. My colleague in our partner high school and I asked students to compose for their final and we really enjoyed the student projects. Feel free to check out our assignment and adapt if you're looking to do composition with your choirs! Student choice and student leadership are definitely priorities for me, and I think I will ask my students for their leadership in how to make the choral performance classroom more creative. How do you incorporate improvisation? Creativity?
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