Skip to main content Accessibility help
×
Hostname: page-component-7c8c6479df-7qhmt Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-03-28T14:16:11.051Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

4 - What I Used to Think about Creativity in Schools

from PART I - VOICES FROM THE FIELD

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  24 November 2016

Tim Patston
Affiliation:
Geelong Grammar School
Ronald A. Beghetto
Affiliation:
University of Connecticut
James C. Kaufman
Affiliation:
University of Connecticut
Get access

Summary

Life can take you on strange and interesting journeys. When I was at an all-boys state school in Australia in the 1960s and 1970s, life seemed predetermined. The smart kids went to a place called university to be smart, and the dumb kids (there were only two types of child at my school) went and did a trade. Knowing now how much it costs to get an electrician or plumber these days, I wonder about this system…

Creativity happened in the Art Department, where a very exotic woman, with long hair and flowing robes, smelling of an exotic substance called patchouli oil, entranced those who were “gifted” with her ability to make pictures or pots out of thin air. As I had no aptitude for pottery or drawing, I accepted that this would always be so. There seemed to be a correlation between art and surfing at my school, or perhaps between art and long hair, I was not certain. My form of expression at school was to be in the school musical. This was not seen as being creative, unless you painted the sets. Learning dialogue and songs was hard, dedicated work, as was learning choreography. I never thought of this as a creative activity, merely a process from learning to performance which was a lot of fun.

Upon leaving school I began to participate in amateur musicals, meeting, for the first time, the “creative types.” These highly idiosyncratic individuals seemed to spend their days as accountants or public servants, only to transform twice a week, in the evening, into what seemed to me to be parodies of the characters we were portraying – flamboyant and exotic, with extravagant hand gestures, and highly affected voices with an indeterminate accent which was part Royal Shakespeare, part working-class Australian with pinched vowels. Creativity seemed to belong in the local halls of Australian suburbia, an outlet from the banality of the workplace, unchanged from the industrial revolution in its conformity to the norm.

Type
Chapter
Information
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2016

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Save book to Kindle

To save this book to your Kindle, first ensure coreplatform@cambridge.org is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part of your Kindle email address below. Find out more about saving to your Kindle.

Note you can select to save to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations. ‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be saved to your device when it is connected to wi-fi. ‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply.

Find out more about the Kindle Personal Document Service.

Available formats
×

Save book to Dropbox

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Dropbox.

Available formats
×

Save book to Google Drive

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

Available formats
×