Nurturing Creativity

I know I've talked about it a bit here.

I have wondered more than once what life would be like if people's talents were nurtured and allowed to grow unchecked instead of a bunch of educrats deciding they must know a bunch of stuff to make them "well rounded."

Of course well rounded is subjective, and depending on who you ask, can take very different forms. It's one of my basic objections to institutional education. When you trace 'what they need to know' to its original source, it might be someone who doesn't even know any children. Some highly paid educational 'expert' who has an agenda to push. Not anyone who cares about what children learn or how they learn it.

::dragging self back to subject:::

But a six year old boy who can draw like this? He needs to be allowed to draw and paint and color and create as much as he wants to.

Can you imagine what his art will look like in a few years?
Or as an adult?

He was not finished with the picture, he wanted to go home and use his good colored pencils to finish coloring it. He promised to bring it back in and allow me to take a picture of it when he's done. I intend to remind him.

I like to provide things for the kids that encourage them to think in different directions. Real art supplies, like the things I have given them for zentangle art. Gel pens with fine points, graphite pencils for shading, blending stumps to blend the lines correctly. Real watercolors. We used those a few times last school year. Thick glue instead of the watery and frustrating school glue they're furnished with in school. Nice watercolor paper, too.

I've never been sorry to have supplied them with good tools.

Yes, I do spend some of my own money.

If I can find the items I need from one of our approved vendors, my manager will buy it for me. If it's not available, or I'm in Goodwill and I see something that is such a good deal I can't pass it up, well then, I don't.

I don't view it as an expense, I view it as an investment, the same way I did with my own children.

And you'd think the kids might waste the supplies, but they really don't. I explain to them what the supplies are for, and they're very good about taking care of our stuff.

And I am so glad I get to watch them create.