Creativity is an Open System
In so many ways, teaching under current COVID conditions has made me a better teacher. For starters, plying my trade under the duress of an all-out pandemic and its safety restrictions requires that I marshal every skill I possess as an educator. Skills which I hardly knew I possessed, but which have been compelled to the fore in response to the current reality, have enabled me to prioritize in ways I was neither forced to nor knew were within my powers. The result has been a leaner curriculum more efficiently delivered on account of the increased intention, intention serving as one of the most critical factors regarding any craft.
This “leaner” concept is an interesting one, its manifestation a direct result of an intentionality that necessarily trims away the fat of superfluous content. The truth of the matter is that schools as heavily resourced as many independent and private schools are, does not necessarily guarantee effective instruction from teachers nor deep learning among students. In fact, an abundance of resources in the hands of the inexperienced or undiscerning teacher can bloat instructive efforts or, even worse, serve as a crutch, or, worse yet, make teachers lazy if onus is mistakenly placed on material resources and not the people using them. An apt analogy may be found in the painting studio itself. Let’s take the young painter, for example, before whom is placed the universal palette, one that includes all the colors from the color wheel. As the young artist attempts to proceed with an initiating decision, one of two things is likely to occur: 1) the neophyte mixes all the colors together resulting in mud, or 2) the novice is paralyzed from making a move at all. Both scenarios hold in common a voided decision, dooming the process since decision-making lies at the heart of the creative process, itself. Understanding this likely tendency of the novice, instructors should purposely limit the range of hues offered. (Ideally, the instructor would issue colors from the same side of the color wheel without the set of hues crossing the warm/cool barrier, lest the ensuing mud mixture.) Holding the objective constant—in the end, one must still create a dynamic image—the artist is then forced to achieve this objective via the prompt of creating within the foisted boundaries. Need is certainly the mother of creativity—and necessity the father of invention—but only within a closed system of established givens.
Forced to ply my teaching trade within a set of parameters—a system—that has become necessarily more rigid and closed, teaching in a pandemic has driven me towards greater intentionality, and so, greater creativity about how to meet the challenges of the moment and attain overall objectives. Reframed as an exciting opportunity, pandemic conditions have served as an impetus for paring down my instruction, particularly from a materials standpoint, freeing me to focus on what is essential within a decision-making process in constant need of streamlining.
And yet, does a restriction on choice—moving from a universal palette of options to a more limited one—have the effect of restricting autonomy? Certainly this is the case involving finite systems regarded solely on their material basis—for instance, the buffet lunch line reduced to ready-made meals pre-packaged for take-out, and even the physical paints, themselves,
