Creativity, pt. 2

One of the things I have come to realize over time is that while art feeds my soul, my passion is for education. Public education in particular. Hence my critique of the following books:

A Big New Free Happy Unusual Life: Self Expression and Spiritual Practice For Those Who Have Time For Neither by Nina Wise

Despite glowing comments on the back of the book from Isabelle Allende and Natalie Goldberg, it didn't take me long to realize that this was not the kind of book I was looking for. As I said in my previous post, I know what I need to do to tap into my creativity, and at this point I don't need exercises to get there. I just need to do it.

The spirituality was of the very general, nonspecific kind, and I am doing most of my spiritual seeking within Quakerism these days with some forays into the writings of the Dalai Lama and Thich Nhat Hanh. Very specific. Very filling.

But this dedication is what made me close the book, with a measure of disgust. "This book is dedicated to my mother, who was fired from teaching elementary school when she insisted that drumming was as important as learning arithmetic."

Here is one of my pet peeves: People who get fired from teaching jobs after a short time for doing something rebellious. OK, in all fairness, I don't know the full story here, and I'm jumping to a conclusion. As I've gotten older, however, I have started to believe that as a teacher it doesn't necessarily help for me to be outwardly subversive all the time. Sure, I think "No Child Left Behind" is terrible policy and benchmarks for kindergartners are set too high for many of them ... but what good would I be to my students if I simply ignored my district's standards, did whatever I pleased all the time, and got disciplined for insubordination? Would it really be in the best interest of my students or would it be to satisfy my ego?

Which leads me to the 2nd book: Orbiting the Giant Hairball: A Corporate Fool's Guide to Surviving with Grace by Gordon MacKenzie.

I almost quit this one too, after reading the first chapter. Gordon McKenzie, sculptor of large metal animals has shown up at an elementary school to do a program about his artwork for the kids. He refers to his visit as a "disruption" and writes, "I was here to show the children that the magic of creativity can happen even in the institution where formal learning is supposed to take place."

As a teacher who gives the best of my creative energy every day to ensure that my students' love of learning is nurtured, and in some cases jump-started, I find the implications of his comment deeply insulting.

A little later he describes the kids filing into the assembly like this: "As I was putting on my welding goggles and scarred leather apron, the teachers would herd the children in, barking orders at them to sit cross-legged on the floor ... Satisfied that order had been attained, the teachers would retire to the back of the room to lose themselves in grading papers, leaving me, for all practical purposes, alone with the children."

I am picturing a scenario where the teachers don't prepare the students for the presentation. The students are rude and obnoxious, constantly interrupting, crawling all over his sculptures and being generally unsafe. Mr. MacKenzie would go home to his significant other and complain, "Those kids were so rude, obnoxious and unsafe. I couldn't give my presentation and those teachers didn't do anything to try to control them!" Right? That's what he'd say!

He notes that, as children go up in grade level, their willingness to describe themselves as artists goes down, and he concludes, "Every school I visited was participating in the suppression of creative genius."

Well, gee. That pisses me off just a little. So I got worked up. "Where does he think the market for his books will be if teachers don't teach kids to read?" I railed. And so on in that vein. I decided I would find his address, write to him and tell him that he'd just dissed a whole group of people who I see give their all for kids, everyday. And it turns out that Gordon MacKenzie is, well, dead.

And that's too bad, because I got through the first chapter and I actually like this book a lot! The giant hairball is his metaphor for all of the traditions, all of the inertia, all of the stupid policies upon stupid policies that are part of any institution. He says you can get sucked into the Hairball, you can choose not to be a part of it at all and fly out into Deep Space (eg. get fired for teaching drumming instead of arithmetic) or find a way to Orbit the Hairball.

Orbiting is responsible creativity: vigorously exploring and operating beyond the Hairball of the corporate mindset, beyond "accepted models, patterns, or standards" -- all the while remaining connected to the spirit of the corporate mission.

So that's what I'm doing in my job these days -- orbiting the Hairball. And it's working pretty well for me, most of the time.

End of a very l-o-n-g diatribe.