Blending In and Standing Out

Engaging our students and nurturing their creative impulses requires us to honor their unique character: who they are and what they bring to the group. In order to do this, we must embrace the delicate balance between our roles of classroom manager and nurturers of creativity. Doug Goodkin characterizes this notion in his book The ABC's of Education: A Primer for Schools to Come as teaching our students to know when to Blend In and when to Stand Out.It seems we do a fairly good job of teaching our students to Blend In but very little of helping our students know when to Stand Out.

Sharing ideas with peers requires confidence and feeling safe from ridicule or being wrong. I witness children growing out of their creativity year by year. Asking children to invent, spontaneously create and freely improvise grows gradually more challenging as the children get older. Until finally they are completely indoctrinated into the paternalistic world of performance-based ensembles, competing for rankings and trophies at theme-park festivals or state conventions, performing music written by Others and led by predominantly male directors and conductors working with a percentage of their schools' student body population--the ones that didn't give up after starting an instrument or singing in the choir for a year or two. The ones that were constantly told to blend in, never receiving the gift of being invited to stand out.

This past weekend I attended the New Jersey music teachers' conference and an attendee's question to the presenter, Dr. Rob Amchin, in a workshop about movement improvisation activities struck a chord with me on this idea of our charge in nurturing creativity.

In typical (delightful) Orff fashion, the workshop room was filled with elementary general music teachers laughing, singing and dancing together. When Dr. Amchin asked for instrumentalists, many attendees raced to a xylophone or djembe, just as our own students always do, laughing and smiling. One of the simple movement improvisation activities invited the group to share a different thing that might be found in a meadow and we all moved our bodies the way that animal might move (it is too much fun for most!). Someone yelled out "Pizza!" and Dr. Amchin adjusted the lyrics of the song to accommodate us as we sang and moved about the room like a pizza "wagging its pepperoni."

After the activity, one of the participants asked if he himself would have allowed a kindergartener to offer "pizza" as a legitimate suggestion, to which Dr. Amchin replied "of course!" And why not? We laughed while we enjoyed the absurdity of a pizza wagging pepperoni, and I have no doubt a room full of kindergartners would squeal with delight. A teacher fearing loss of control may not allow a silly response from a child and guide him or her to a more "appropriate" answer. What are the hidden messages behind this seemingly innocuous moment? There are many and they fulfill a perhaps larger hidden curriculum of falling in line with authoritarian teacher-directed expectations, no acceptance of creative, outside-the-box thinking and that the child's imaginative ideas are unacceptable for the group. The teacher has maintained control and the student has learned to be realistic and unimaginative--to Blend In. The class has missed out on transforming their bodies into an inanimate object and how to shape their bodies to convey the idea of how a pizza might actually move if it could! Would it roll? Would it bubble? Would it just sit there because it's a pizza? What a fun thing to explore.

A teacher not learning from his or her students every day has ceased to be a teacher. There are indeed times to blend in, fit within the group but there are times to stand out and let your voice be heard. Perhaps nurturing creativity in our students requires as much risk-taking from the teacher as it does from the student. I hadn't thought of that before!